


I might have to tell you

by Ingu



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Domestic Boyfriends, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24803128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingu/pseuds/Ingu
Summary: “Maddie, I made Chris a promise and I can’t finish this list. There’s no way I’m going to get away with all of this.”“Really though?” Maddie said, and Buck could almost see her playfully doubtful expression. “You don’t think you might be over-exaggerating just a little?”“Maddie, the list says to kiss Eddie.”(the one where Christopher gives Buck a list of how to cheer Eddie up while he's gone, and Buck accepts without reading the terms and conditions first)
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 53
Kudos: 809





	I might have to tell you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theleftboobgrabber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleftboobgrabber/gifts), [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> So this fic is about 80% campy fluff and domesticity and Buck being a eager lovesick puppy pining after Eddie, and 20% Buck being a self-sabotaging human disaster with unresolved issues being exceptionally bad at feelings. I cannot undersell how bad at feelings the Buck in this fic is, please just, be prepared.
> 
> The story is based on [this tumblr post](http://ingu.tumblr.com/post/620133559577018368/pan-buck-theleftboobgrabber-christopher) by theleftboobgrabber and pan_buck, which I couldn't stop thinking about after reading. So here we are, two weeks and 21k later. Guys you have no idea how much I agonised over this thing. But I did it! Here it is! I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Also, check out this [amazing cover art](https://ingu.tumblr.com/post/628828926562746368/ronordmann-i-might-have-to-tell-you) by ronordmann!
> 
> This is completely unbetated and all mistakes remain mine.
> 
> Title lifted from [I Like Me Better by Lauv](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcqxLCWn-CE).

  
  


Buck’s first and original mistake was to make Christopher a promise without first asking what it was.

The thing was, you see, Christopher was doing the wibbly pouty thing. There was the slightest downturn to his mouth, his lips were pressed together, and he was looking so sad, his voice such a soft nervous whisper, that Buck was almost instantly enveloped with the overwhelming need to Make It Better. In that very moment, there was nothing in the world less okay than Christopher being sad when Buck was there to do something about it. 

So when the next words out of Christopher’s mouth after he gave Buck That Expression was: “Can you promise me something, Bucky?”

“Of course, Christopher, anything you need,” was Buck’s instant and unquestioning response. 

The TV was on episode three of a new cartoon they’d just started, and the pair were pressed together on Eddie’s couch after an afternoon of hanging out together. Eddie had been called in at the last minute to fill in on a shift and Buck had volunteered as caretaker the moment he found out. He would have volunteered to take the shift for Eddie too, if it wasn’t for the fact that Eddie needed the extra money to help pay for the camp Christopher would be leaving for soon.

And perhaps in some way it was karma, because Buck hadn’t been above using his own patented Puppy Eyes technique to convince Eddie that he really was the best person to look after Christopher that evening. He didn’t really know what it was, but whenever he made The Face people around him had a way of caving and saying yes to his requests. And this time, he had watched the uncertainty on Eddie’s face melt into fond exasperation before he said sure, Buck could look after Christopher that evening.

The universe had a way of balancing things out in the end, it seemed.

Once Buck had made his promise, Christopher dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of A4 paper. He handed it to Buck, who looked at him curiously before taking it and then unfolding it.

It was a list, carefully spelled out in nine-year-old handwriting and with at least six different colors and some very impressive illustrations. Every item was clearly numbered from one to twenty, and at the top of the page the heading said:

**_how to cheer up Dad when I’m at camp_ **

Buck’s eyes widened as he read through the items - ice cream, jokes, video games - lots of fun and simple things that were great ideas for keeping Eddie distracted from Christopher’s absence. What struck him the hardest, however, was how thoughtful and sweet it was for Christopher to have written this list at all. 

“Bucky can you… take care of Daddy while I’m gone?” Christopher said slowly. “He’ll be all alone. I don’t want him to be sad.”

“Christopher…” A bark of laughter escaped Buck’s lips as he stared between the list and the boy in sheer wonder. How had Eddie gotten this lucky, to have such a wonderful and beautiful and caring kid like Christopher? He was truly an amazing Dad, to have brought up a kid like this.

“You have to do everything on the list.” Christopher said. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” Buck laughed, struck a little speechless as he reached out to stroke Christopher's hair, and then pressed a kiss to the top of his head because he just couldn’t resist. He loved the boy so much. “Yeah. Of course. I can do that.”

Christopher lit up at his response, and his grin was so bright Buck could only beam back at him, thrilled that he’d made Christopher so happy.

“You can’t tell him, okay?” Christopher said. “You have to be sneaky.”

“Sneaky?” Buck made a big face of surprise.

“Yeah,” Christopher grinned. “Only you and I know about it.”

“Alright, it will be our little secret.”

“Pinky promise?” Christopher said.

Buck, without having read through all twenty items first, did the unthinkable, and he reached out to pinky swear. They hooked pinkies, and then pressed their thumbs together, and the pact was sealed, alongside Buck’s fate.

It wasn’t later, until Christopher had gone to sleep, that Buck took a moment to read through the list in full. When he finally made his way to the end for the first time, his eyes shot wide, and the soft smile on his face slowly began to fade into something like horror.

“Oh fuck.”

The pinky swear had been a terrible mistake. 

  
  
  


-

  
  


The others had always told Buck off for doing things without thinking it through first, and sure, over the years he had made lots of poorly-informed decisions and then lived to regret his actions. But this mistake, perhaps being the newest, the freshest, the yet-to-be-resolved, felt like the most disastrous one of all.

There was no way Buck could do every single item Christopher had put onto that list. The practicality of him ticking off all twenty items in two weeks aside, so many of the items could have awkward, confusing, and messy consequences. And Buck wasn’t some cute nine year old child who could get away with it all just with a cheeky grin or a pout. He was going to fail, one way or another, and he was going to disappoint Chris. 

“You did what?”

Buck started to regret panic-calling Maddie almost the instant he finished describing the situation. Over the line, Maddie laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

“Are you done?” Buck sighed, when it seemed like Maddie wasn’t ever going to stop.

“I’m sorry,” Maddie said, still chuckling, “this is just so adorable! I can’t believe Christopher did that!”

“Yes, Christopher is amazing and I love him too, but that’s not the issue here, Maddie.” Buck said. He needed Maddie to _focus_ . “Maddie, I made him a promise and I _can’t_ finish this list. There’s no way I’m going to get away with all of this.”

“Really though?” Maddie said, and Buck could almost see her playfully doubtful expression. “You don’t think you might be over-exaggerating _just_ a little?”

“Maddie, the list says to _kiss_ Eddie.”

“So do it,” Maddie didn’t sound sympathetic in the slightest. “I mean you’ve been thinking about it for a while now, haven’t you?”

“Can we please be serious for one moment here?” Buck said. When was Maddie going to stop teasing him about his crush on Eddie? How did he make her stop?

“You shouldn’t underestimate yourself, Buck,” Maddie said. “I mean, if you need to you can always just play it off as some sort of joke, you know, just start laughing, tell him you didn’t mean it.”

“Yeah I’m… not sure I can or want to pull that off, Maddie.”

“So what, you’re just going to let Christopher down? Betray his trust?” Maddie said. “He’s a nine-year-old, Buck, that would be _devastating_!”

That was the _last_ thing Buck wanted. And Maddie had half a point, even if Buck didn’t get through _all_ twenty items on Christopher’s list, he could still do everything else _but_ the kissing part. It was better if Christopher learned that Buck had tried and then failed than for him to not make any effort at all, or worse, to lie to him. And Christopher would be understanding, Buck knew it, just like Eddie was sure to be understanding if Buck accidentally went too far on his mission of cheering Eddie up. Everyone would understand, right? 

Because Buck didn’t really know how to pull off the kissing Eddie thing.

Or taking him to an aquarium, for that matter.

“I mean… the worst case is that I just… don’t do all of it.” Buck said, his mind stuck again on the ‘try kisses’ part of the list, as his imagination started offering every variety of how something like that could happen. Maybe a quick goodbye kiss? Just a swift peck on the cheek as he rushed out, so Eddie wouldn’t have time to react. Or could he get away with a greeting kiss, like how Eddie did with his family? What would be really nice though, is to press Eddie up against the lockers and just- Wait. No. Not going there.

It wasn’t like he wasn’t already fighting an overwhelming urge to just close the distance almost every time Eddie stood a little too close. This just made everything so much more complicated.

“Oh, no, you have to do all of it,” Maddie said. “Otherwise Christopher will never forgive you, you know that right?”

“What?” Buck breathed, heartbroken at the thought.

“Okay, remember when you were like, eight? And over summer break you wrote up this huge list of like, the twelve things you wanted to do that summer? Like, go to the water park, learn to make cookies, go for a bike ride... and you made me promise you that I’d help you do everything on the list.”

Buck remembered, suddenly, the visceral pain of betrayal he’d experienced as an eight-year-old. “You never took me to the water park.”

“Yes, I may have spent that money on the new NSYNC album. But the point is, when you went back to school you wouldn’t talk to me for nearly _a month,_ you were so upset at me for abandoning you.”

“It was the last thing on my list!” Buck cried out.

“ _See_?” 

Buck’s heart sank to the bottom of his stomach. Maddie was right. Buck couldn’t fail Christopher. He couldn’t betray him. He didn’t want to lose his position as BFF, to see a frown on Christopher’s face or tears in his eyes. Christopher had to know that Buck wouldn’t betray him, he had to know he could trust Buck. Buck had made Christopher a promise.

He’d made Christopher a promise.

“Fine.” Buck sighed, even as he regretted every single one of his decisions that had led him to this moment. “I’ll… try.”

He couldn’t violate the sacred tradition of the pinky swear, not unless he wanted Christopher to never trust him again. 

Maddie’s delighted laughter rang out over the line. “Buck, I believe in you, alright? Believe in yourself.”

“Yeah, well,” Buck grumbled. “Just- Please don’t go telling Chimney or anyone else, okay?”

“My lips are sealed.”

“I _mean_ it. If he starts laughing at me at work I’m disowning you as a sister.” Buck wished he didn’t sound so much like his mopey teenage self, but Maddie had a way of bringing that out of him, sometimes.

“You don’t actually mean that.”  
  


“Well, no, obviously,” Buck said. “But you get my point.”

Maddie laughed again. “I promise I won’t tell.”

  
  


-

  
  


Buck and Eddie weren’t rostered for the same shift for another day and a half, and so Buck spent most of that time agonizing over his impulsive decision, running the list through his head and thinking of all the ways it could go wrong. So much of it was simple and harmless, but the hardest items had the potential to turn into disaster if Buck didn’t reign in his feelings properly.

It occurred to him that he was probably making all of it a much bigger deal than it really needed to be. It wasn’t like it wasn’t normal for best friends to tell each other they loved them, and it wasn’t like Buck was some self-serious, straight-laced sort who couldn’t get away with a kiss with the right excuses. The whole mistletoe thing at the Christmas party was his idea after all, even if he had never worked up the courage to use it on Eddie. Everything was probably going to be fine, and he wasn’t going to lose his best friend or get punched in the face or accidentally confess he was _in love_ with Eddie in the process, like he was irrationally terrified he would.

Buck could do this. He could do it. As long as he was smart and clever about it all, he could keep his promise to Christopher, and more importantly, cheer Eddie up at the same time without accidentally overstepping important boundaries. It could be a win-win situation for everyone, as long as Buck didn’t screw everything up.

And the truth was, Buck wanted to cheer Eddie up, he wanted to distract him from Chris’ absence and make him happy. Buck wanted Eddie to be happy more than he wanted anything else in the world, some days, and the strength of it scared him a little when he thought about it.

So Buck didn’t think about it. He was just going to do the list.

And he was going to do his best. He was going to try. 

Even if he had no idea if he could really kiss Eddie without accidentally professing all of his poorly concealed feelings in the process.

  
  


-

  
  


Buck didn’t exactly have a plan for how he was going to get through the list, but there was nothing wrong with simply being prepared, and being opportunistic. He searched for jokes online, placed a call to Pepa who gave him the number of Eddie’s abuela, and he even bought a bunch of art supplies, all so he could be ready when the time came. 

After Christopher left for camp, Buck paid careful attention to Eddie from the moment he showed up to their first shift together. Eddie was all friendly smiles and cheer, saying it was quiet in his house now but it meant he finally had time to get some stuff done. Everything was fine, he said, and he missed Christopher a little but not too much. He didn’t have anything planned, and was just going to use the time to wind down and relax for once.

But despite Eddie’s claims, Buck glued himself just a little bit more consistently to his best friend’s side.

There was some chance, however small and improbable, that Eddie would actually be _okay_ , that he’d be perfectly fine and happy and not need cheering up just because the light of his life and existence had hopped on a bus into the countryside. When Eddie had signed Chris up, he had insisted that he wasn’t worried. And now, even though a few days had already passed since Christopher’s departure, Eddie was chatting and laughing as usual, and was well on track to proving himself right.

That was, until he admitted to Buck, in between two late night calls, that he had been thinking about Christopher, and was worried that the camp staff might not be supporting him properly. Then, as night shifted into day, and everyone started stumbling half-asleep from the bunks, Eddie’s facade slipped more and more. Over breakfast, Buck watched the way that Eddie would stare off into space sometimes, or pick up his phone, unlock it, then put it down again, like he was waiting for a message or an update of some sort. Everyone was passing around knowing looks and half-hidden smirks whenever they walked around him. And by late-morning, staring at the small downturn to Eddie’s lips and the furrow in his brows, Buck resolved that it was time to intervene.

The day had been quiet so far, and Buck had finished every task Bobby had asked him to do that morning. So Buck stole a moment and made his way to the coffee machine and started the process of making drinks for everyone. Christopher had given him twenty items to get through (or maybe like, seventeen, if Buck stuck to the ones he could realistically achieve), and with less than fourteen days to work with it meant that he needed to do at least two things a day to have a chance of making it to the end.

Pulling out a tray from the cabinets, Buck placed mugs of freshly made coffee across it, and then started taking it around the loft with a wide, cheery grin.

Every single person he offered the tray to stared at him weirdly, and Buck didn’t know if he should take offence to it a not. Chimney squinted at him with suspicion and accused him of poisoning the drinks. Bobby frowned and asked him if he was trying to apologize for something. And only Hen smiled at him and said thanks without an audible question mark at the end, and told him she felt spoiled. That was, until Buck told her that the mug she was reaching for was reserved and that she should get a different mug instead. Then she just looked confused.

He finally made his way to Eddie when there were only two mugs left on his tray. The coffee was no longer piping hot, but Eddie still smiled warmly at him as he rolled out from beneath the truck and sat up on the garage creeper. 

“What’s gotten into you today?” Eddie said with a small, incredulous laugh as he reached for the wrong mug. “Not that I’m not gra-”

“Oh, wait no,” Buck said, pulling away and leaving Eddie agape, his hand hanging in midair. Buck adjusted the tray in his hand and then handed Eddie his specially prepared concoction. _(1. coffee with TONS of sugar so its not gross)_

“Okay…?” Eddie said as he accepted the drink with an uncertain smile. “Should I be worried or-?”

Buck didn’t respond, and instead waved to an approaching Hen and Chimney, who were studying him with twin looks of suspicion and coffees in their hands. Buck smiled his most innocent smile, knowing Hen had noticed that he’d just handed the forbidden cup of coffee to Eddie.

Beside him, Eddie took one sip and choked. “Christ, Buck, how much sugar did you put in this?”

Chimney raised an eyebrow. 

Hen gave Buck a long look as she took a drink of hers, and then fake-frowned at Eddie. “What are you talking about? Mine’s fine.”

Eddie gave Buck a chiding side-glance, and handed his drink back to Buck, who placed it onto the tray with a sheepish smile. He knew Eddie’s exact coffee order and this wasn’t it. But dammit, Buck had a mission to accomplish.

“Okay, I see,” Chimney said, gesturing with his mug, “so the coffee _was_ poisoned, but only Eddie’s.”

“Was that revenge for something I did, or-?” Eddie said. Then, a look of confusion crossed his face when Buck shoved the other remaining mug forward for Eddie to take.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Buck said. “I just got the mugs mixed up.”

Eddie took the drink, looking even more suspicious than before, and then hesitantly took a sip. He paused, for a moment, in surprise, and then took a long drink, eye crinkling as he glanced up at Buck.

“Good?” Buck grinned. He’d made it exactly how Eddie liked it, and made sure it’d be extra hot so it wouldn’t be cold by the time he’d made the rounds.

“I’ll take it,” Eddie said with a smile and a shrug. “Thanks Buck.”

“Wait… why does Eddie get a special mug?” Chimney said, looking between Buck and Eddie with a look of outrage.

“I think he just likes Eddie better than you,” Hen replied, lips pressed together in a sympathetic frown as she regarded Chimney beside her.

“If this is how you guys are going to be when I try and do something nice, I’m not making coffee again,” Buck complained dramatically as he started walking back toward the kitchen.

“I’m just calling out the unfair treatment, that’s all,” Chimney said, following behind.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Buck said. In a moment of curiosity, he picked up the sweetened coffee and took a sip, then immediately started coughing as the sugar hit every one of his taste buds at once.

That was definitely not fit for human consumption.

After the coffee interlude, Eddie did seem a little bit happier for the rest of the day. Though it could have also just as easily have been because of the caffeine buzzing through his system, or the fact that he won the ill-advised game of Monopoly Hen decided to start up a few hours later. The point was, however, Buck had done the thing to cheer Eddie up, and it appeared to have worked. And the fact of it left Buck filled with a pleasant warm buzz for the rest of the day.

  
  


-

  
  


During their next shift, when Eddie started looking just a bit too glum as he stared off into space, Buck unleashed step two of his plans.

“Hey Eddie?”

“What is it?”

“Did you hear the news about that plane?”

“No? What happened?”

“Nevermind, it’ll probably _fly over your head_.”

Eddie grimaced, and let out the longest sigh Buck had ever heard. But then, his shoulders started to shake, and he was laughing. And then Buck was laughing too.

_(5. tell him a joke)_

  
  


-

  
  


Their schedules fell out of sync on the following day, when Buck had a day off and Eddie had a shift. It was the perfect time for Buck to do some more prep for Mission: Cheer Up Eddie, which was going very well so far, if Buck could say so himself. 

But then again, Christopher hadn’t been gone for very long yet. The days were going to drag on and soon Eddie was going to start missing Christopher more and more. And Buck, well he had to be ready. So, on his day off, Buck dug out the art supplies.

( _4\. draw him a picture!!)_

Drawing the picture was the easy part of it all, though Buck wasn’t sure what he was going to do with the brand new crayons and glitter glue he’d bought afterward. He thought about gifting it to Christopher after he came back from camp. But that might make the fact that he’d bought the supplies just to draw pictures for Eddie a bit too obvious, so Buck decided on keeping it in a drawer for Christopher to use whenever he came over.

Buck had a little bit of art skill, mostly developed from his angsty teenage scribblings, and now it translated well to crayon artwork imitating Christopher’s own style. Buck had no idea what Picasso was talking about when he said it took him a lifetime to draw like a child. Because abstract stick figures were just about the easiest thing to do, since there was no real way of doing it wrong.

On one sheet of paper, Buck drew himself and Eddie and Christopher as stick figures, and made a round yellow sun in the corner and a few trees out of green triangles. He decided half way through drawing that it was going to be a picnic of some sort, and then he was putting in a picnic rug and some plates with food on top.

Then, since he was on a roll, he drew another two more just for fun. One was of the three of them at the zoo, and he outlined elephants in grey and tall giraffes in orange, and gave Christopher a red balloon just because. And the other was just him and Eddie, dressed up as firefighters and pointing a hose which sprayed blue streaks of water at a square building on fire. He used the glitter glue to fill in the red and yellow outlines.

In the end, Buck was really happy with what he’d created. And if he had no idea yet how he was actually going to give Eddie the pictures without it being weird, well, he had about ten days to figure that out.

  
  


-

  
  


Buck waited until evening before he pulled out his phone and dialed Eddie’s number, picking a time when he thought that Eddie would have made it home. It was unusual for him to call up like this, especially the day after they just had a shift, since they usually just kept in touch via text and caught up whenever they saw each other at work. But with Christopher away and his house empty, Buck thought Eddie might appreciate the timing of his distraction. 

As he waited for Eddie to answer, Buck switched his phone to speaker mode and started clattering about the kitchen, preparing to make soup for dinner. It was a recipe he’d never tried before and he wanted to do it right, figure out how the ingredients went together properly before he brought it out for other people.

“Hey Buck, what’s up?” Eddie picked up just a few rings later, sounding cheery. 

Buck took it as a sign he wasn’t busy. “Hey Eddie, how’s your day been? Just wanted to check in.” _(2. tell him about your day - he smiles when i tell him about school and stuff)_

There was a soft huff of laughter over the line. “Not that I don’t enjoy chatting, but didn’t we just see each other yesterday?”

“Yes, but I knew you were probably missing me,” Buck said as he started collecting and pulling out ingredients. “So I thought I’d rescue you from your pining. Any interesting calls?”

“Well, we had to rescue a dog from a tree,” Eddie replied without missing a beat, amusement in his voice. “Does that count?”

Eddie hadn’t refuted him. Buck froze for a moment, a jar of chilli powder in his hand, stuck on the fact that Eddie had conceded he was missing Buck, before his mind processed Eddie’s words.

“Wait, a dog? Not a cat?”

“Yeah, a little Jack Russell. And don’t ask me how it got into the tree because I’m still having problems understanding it.”

“I- wh- was the owner around?” With everything assembled on his counter, Buck started peeling cloves of garlic.

“Yeah, it was a kid who called it in, and, coincidentally, the kid was stuck in the same tree. I think the dog tried to climb up to join him...?”

“Did you get them down okay?”

A pause. “Why do you assume _I_ was the one who went up the tree?”

“Um, because there was a kid in danger? And you have no sense of self-preservation when it comes to children?”

There was a long silence on the other end, as they both remembered the underground incident, and the Spiderman-stunt incident, among countless others that had shaved years off of Buck’s life. 

“Touché,” Eddie said, before he took a deep breath. “Yeah, the kid’s fine.”

Buck laughed, and moved onto the onion, cutting the bulb in half with a slice of his knife.

“Wait, are you cooking?” Eddie said.

“Yep, trying out a new soup recipe, I got some aromatics, spices, some pork...”

Eddie moaned. “That sounds good. I wouldn’t mind some soup right now, to be honest.”

Buck’s gaze drifted across the ingredients assembled in front of him, thinking about his plans, and he pressed his lips together to hide his smile. “What’s for dinner?”

“Uh…”

Buck laughed. “Takeout again?”

“Do you know anywhere that does good soup?”

They started comparing restaurant options, and then went back to telling each other about their day. Eddie’s other calls that day were very standard - a man who mistook a panic attack for a heart attack, a woman who’d attempted DIY instead of calling a plumber and got her hand stuck in a pipe. They were light, simple things that were more amusing than draining. And though Buck himself didn’t get to save any kids or cute animals that day, he _did_ get through Marie Kondo-ing half of his wardrobe. And he’d gone for a long overdue grocery shop.

“But then they were out of arborio rice,” Buck said, as he stirred the soup on the stove. “So I ended up going to this super fancy place near the station?”

“Yeah?” Eddie’s voice was soft over the phone. Buck could almost hear the smile on his lips, and so he kept talking.

“It was amazing, Eddie. You have to see it. They had like a _cheese room_ , with all of these fancy European cheeses. And you could slice your own bread, and press your own juice with your choice of oranges. And they had this dessert bar where you could get ice cream and add your own toppings. You could practically take someone there on a date and walk them down the aisle.”

“Sounds efficient,” Eddie said with laughter in his voice. “Date _and_ grocery shop at the same time.”

“Maybe that’s the _secret_ , you know?” Buck mused. “Make the date nice, but practical. So even if you don’t click at least you didn’t waste your time.”

“I mean with how little time I have between work and Chris? I’d take it.”

Buck chuckled, and took a deep breath. The soup smelled so good, and it was nearly done, he was getting properly excited to taste it.

“Hey Eddie?” Buck said on a whim, as he watched the soup bubbling away in front of him.

“Yeah Buck?”

“Do you want to come over for dinner? I have a lot of soup.”

There was an extended silence. “You couldn’t have invited me fifteen minutes ago? Before I ordered?”

Buck laughed. “Yeah, well, it didn’t occur to me fifteen minutes ago. Next time?”

“Next time I might just show up at your door expecting you to feed me.”

A really great thought hit Buck then. “Or even better, how about I _teach_ you what Bobby’s been teaching me, so you can start feeding Christopher some proper food for once?”

Eddie paused, and Buck had the distinct sense Eddie was trying to weigh up whether he was going to let the insult go or not. 

“You know what?” Eddie said. “Let’s do it. Message me the ingredients and I’ll make sure they’re in the fridge.”

“Deal,” Buck said as he stuck a spoon into the soup and then tasted it. He blinked as the rich flavors danced across his tongue.

“Eddie?” Buck said.

“What is it?”

“This soup is _so_ good?” Buck was having trouble believing it himself. He didn’t mess up at all? No wonder this was a magic soup. It was amazing.

Eddie groaned. “I hate you so much.”

“You take that back!”

Calling to chat with Eddie on his day off turned out to be so fun and easy, Buck wondered why he hadn’t started doing it earlier. He liked hearing Eddie’s voice, and he _missed_ him more than he wanted to admit, even when they’d spent almost 24 hours together the day before. It was one of the dumb side effects of having a raging crush on a person, and these days, Buck’s crush on Eddie was starting to outgrow the sun. Buck’s original goal had been to cheer Eddie up, but when he hung up the call, he was the one who was buzzing and happy. 

So Buck thought maybe he should start doing it more. 

Yeah. He was going to start calling Eddie more on their days off.

  
  


-

  
  


Another day brought them to a call at the pier, and Buck and Eddie stood side by side, watching with matching frowns of sympathy and fascination, as Hen and Chimney looked over their patient. The unfortunate young man had got caught by the hook of an overeager fisher, and the hook had gone through his eyelid and into his eyeball in what was quite a gruesome sight. Buck just hoped that the guy wouldn’t lose vision in his injured eye.

Eventually, they were sending the young man on his way to the hospital. Buck joined the rest of the team as they departed the pier, and as he passed a stall, he caught sight of a little plastic tuna fish keyring hanging from a display.

A question drifted into his mind and took hold as he trailed after Eddie. 

“Hey Eddie?” Buck said, when they were halfway to the truck.

“Yeah?” Eddie turned toward him with a smile.

_(7. ask him a funny question - one time i asked him if dogs know they’re dogs and he smiled a lot!!)_

“Why do you think people call it _tuna fish_?” 

Eddie’s smile froze, and his brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”

Buck picked up his pace for a few steps as Eddie slowed so they were walking side by side.

“I mean you don’t say things like, bear mammal and pigeon bird.” Buck said. “What makes tuna so special?”

Eddie’s expression went weird as he pressed his lips together, his eyes crinkling in a way like he was trying not to laugh. “Well… uh, it’s probably because tuna can also refer to prickly pears? People probably didn’t want others to get confused.”

Buck gaped at Eddie. He wasn’t supposed to have an answer to that. There wasn’t supposed to be a logical answer for that, no matter how much it made sense that it did. “How do you know that?”

Eddie’s smile turned mysterious, and he just shrugged and kept walking.

“No, Eddie, seriously. How is that a thing that you know?”

  
  


-

  
  


_(3. ICE CREAM)_

Buck spotted the ice-cream truck just as they arrived at a beachside call a few hours later, but it wasn’t until after the patient had been loaded onto the ambulance that he could dart off to go buy some. They were technically supposed to hop straight back onto the truck and head back. But there wasn’t even a queue and he was going to take maybe two minutes at most, so he thought that surely the others would be fine with it.

Buck made his way back toward the truck just as Eddie suddenly opened the door and hopped back out from inside. Eddie was looking around worriedly, before he turned and finally locked eyes with Buck, who was fast approaching with an ice cream cone in each hand.

“Buck! Where have yo-”

“Eddie! I got you some ice cream!”

Eddie’s mouth fell open as Buck presented him with one of the cones, that was stacked with two different flavours Buck knew Eddie liked. Eddie pulled off his gloves, and took it hesitantly.

“What... why?” Eddie said, staring at Buck in wide-eyed confusion.

“You’ve been sulking about all day,” Buck said with a shrug, as he darted in to lick at the ice cream that was melting onto his fingers. “It was bumming me out, man.”

Eddie was staring at him in awe, frozen for a split second, before he came back to life and laughed softly. “So you- Uh, thank you? I think?” 

Buck just grinned and bumped Eddie’s shoulders before walking toward the doors of the truck. Just as he approached, Chimney threw open the door and leaned out to stare at him with a look of outrage.

“What’s this?” Chimney said, throwing his arms wide. “Where’s our ice cream?”

“Truck’s back that way,” Buck said, jerking his head back as he climbed in.

Then, when both Eddie and Buck were back in the truck, carefully trying to eat their ice creams without it dripping everywhere, it was Hen staring between him and Eddie with a look of disbelief. “Seriously, boys?”

Eddie just shrugged, self-conscious as he polished off his cone. 

Buck grinned, the perfect picture of innocence.

  
  


-

  
  


“I see what you’re doing, Buckaroo, and it’s about damn time.”

Chimney cornered Buck in the locker room later that same day, and all Buck could do was stare dumbly at him, undershirt half over his head. They were both putting on fresh uniforms after getting soaked on their last call, and the room was empty but for the two of them.

“What are you talking about?” Buck said as he pulled the shirt rest of the way down.

Chimney raised an eyebrow at him. “The coffee? Ice cream? I was there the other day when Eddie spent _forty minutes_ on the phone with you, you know.”

“Uh…” Buck tried to put himself in Chimney’s shoes and look at his actions from an outside perspective. He groaned internally as the dots connected. “Yeah okay when you put it like that I can see how that might look.”

“How it _might_ look? Wait, Buck, you can’t be saying you’re not doing this on purpose.”

“Look, Eddie’s all alone at home right now. I’m just trying to cheer him up and distract him from the fact that Chris isn’t around.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” Chimney looked at him like he thought Buck was insane. “You’re not buttering him up so you can finally ask him out? Buck, what are you doing? Now is the _perfect_ time to let him know how you feel.”

This time, Buck groaned for real. It was really frustrating sometimes, how the entire firehouse knew of his embarrassingly huge crush on Eddie. It wasn’t his fault that Eddie was smart and cool and kind and coincidentally one of the most gorgeous people Buck had ever met. Nor was it Eddie’s fault that Buck apparently hid his feelings as well as their trucks hid the fact they were firefighters - in that it was brightly on display for everyone to see.

“Chimney, like you said, it’s not like I’ve been _subtle_ this whole time, okay?” Buck snapped, as he started pulling on his uniform shirt. “The whole 118 knows, and he’s definitely picked up on it by now. There’s a reason he hasn’t said or done anything. He’s not interested.”

“You know what I’d do if I was trying to send hints that I wasn’t interested? I’d say no to free ice cream no one else was getting, and _not spend almost an hour catching up with someone I just saw yesterday._ ”

“Now it just sounds like you’re jealous of our friendship,” Buck said.

“Buck, you literally gave Maddie and I the exact same talk when we first started hanging out, how can you be not seeing this?”

“You’re forgetting an important difference, where you and Maddie’s feelings for each other are _reciprocated_ , and mine are not.” Buck started on the buttons of his shirt.

“Or maybe, he doesn’t actually know because you _haven’t told him_.”

“Chimney, please, just drop it.”

“You’re making this so much harder for yourself than it needs to be.”

“Are you guys okay?” Eddie’s voice broke in, and both Chimney and Buck turned to find none other than Eddie Diaz, the topic of their argument, standing in the doorway and watching them both with an expression of light concern. 

Eddie looked between them, uncertainty shifting into worry as he took in their expressions of alarm. “I just… needed to grab something from my locker.” Eddie pointed.

“Yeah, go for it. We’re fine!” Buck said with a forced grin as he quickly finished buttoning his shirt and started walking for the door.

Eddie stepped aside to let him out, looking between two of them curiously. Chimney glared at Buck, and then sighed, and shrugged at Eddie.

“The boy’s just being a stubborn idiot,” was the last thing Buck heard as he fled up the stairs.

  
  


-

  
  


Friday night rolled around, and Buck swung by Eddie’s place for their planned cooking lesson. He got handed a bottle of beer almost the moment he walked through the door. It was the brand of IPA he liked, and Buck grinned at the fact that Eddie had remembered to buy some as he popped open the bottle and took a swig.

Eddie wasn’t nearly as bad a cook as Buck used to be before he started lessons. But Eddie had explained, somewhere around the sixth time Christopher had mentioned having pizza for dinner, that he’d figured most of it out on his own. Growing up, he’d gotten kicked out of the kitchen for being in the way more often than he was asked to help or taught anything useful. Then, he’d lived off cafeteria food and rations as a soldier. And now as an adult, Eddie had a yawning gap in life skills he also had little time to address.

Buck had arrived hungry, and the two of them got started almost immediately. Buck told Eddie he was going to watch and let Eddie take the lead. And from the way Eddie stared at him with something akin to fear, Buck had a feeling that Eddie had hoped that Buck would demonstrate so he didn’t have to cook. But still, Eddie agreed with no complaint, and then Buck was showing off the best way to dice an onion as Eddie stood watching at his side. 

And it was really nice, having Eddie stand so close to him, studying his every move. One of these days Buck was going to have to confront how good it felt to be the center of Eddie’s attention, but today was not that day.

Buck felt grossly under-qualified to be the one giving a lesson when Bobby had been showing him the exact same things barely two years ago, but he liked to think that he’d been an attentive student. And so he tried to teach Eddie like Bobby had taught him, explaining things like how he shouldn’t always use the highest setting on the stove, because it meant the food can heat unevenly and end up burnt. Or that if you were feeling unsure about seasoning, the best way was to add a little bit at a time and to taste often. 

They were making a simple pasta dish, something quick and easy with canned tomatoes and mince that Buck liked to make whenever he got home from a long shift and just wanted food fast. Buck sat and drank beer as he made Eddie go through each of the steps himself, giving out tips whenever it looked necessary. 

When the sauce was about ready, Buck slipped around the counter and stepped beside Eddie, who was studying the pot with an intense frown that was drifting toward a pout. Buck stuck a spoon into the sauce as Eddie stared seriously at him, and tasted it.

Buck immediately grimaced. He wasn’t sure if it was the brand of tomatoes they used, but it was really tart. He started reaching for the sugar, and handed it to Eddie. 

“Wait, sugar?” Eddie’s face twisted in confusion as he took the jar.

“Yeah, it balances out the tartness,” Buck said with a smile.

Eddie stuck a spoon into the sugar, and then scooped up about a teaspoon’s worth, before holding it up and looking questioningly at Buck.

Buck considered it. “Maybe a bit less?”

Eddie angled the spoon and a bit of sugar fell back into the jar. Then he looked at Buck again.

Buck nodded, and then Eddie dumped the sugar into the pot, before setting the jar aside and stirring the sauce some more. Once the sugar had fully dissolved, Buck stuck another spoon in, and tasted it again.

This time, he smiled. “That’s good! Here, try it.”

Without thinking, he put the spoon back into the pot and scooped up some more sauce, and held it up to Eddie’s lips.

Eddie paused, eyes going imperceptibly wide, before he leant forward and tasted the sauce. Buck froze, suddenly realizing what he’d just done.

Eddie’s brows shot up, impressed. “Huh. Yeah, you’re right, it doesn’t taste as sour anymore.”

Buck stiffly lowered the spoon. “I know right?” He said, forcing a wide smile onto his face. “Blew my mind when Bobby showed me. If something is too sour, you can add a bit of sugar to balance it out.”

“And if something is… too salty?” Eddie asked, his voice carefully neutral in a way that made Buck wonder how many times he’d oversalted his cooking.

Buck made a face. “Unless you can add more ingredients to dilute the salt? I don’t think there’s really any coming back from that.”

Eddie nodded.

Before long, they were plating up the pasta and the sauce, and Buck was sprinkling pre-packaged parmesan over his meal. 

“If Bobby ever asks, I said to always use freshly ground cheese, okay?” Buck said.

“What happens if I tell on you?” Eddie said as he took the package from Buck.

Buck glared, and Eddie just laughed at him.

They settled in front of the TV with their food, and Buck started to hunt for a movie to put on. Examining Eddie’s DVD collection, Buck picked up the Emperor’s New Groove for all of two seconds before Eddie was shaking his head laughing, saying he’d seen it a hundred times.

“Does that make it your favorite then?” Buck teased as he put the DVD back, and perused the other children’s movies on offer.

“It’s definitely Chris’ favourite.” Eddie said as he leant back on the couch. “We watch it at least once a fortnight.”

Buck frowned, remembering the wording on Christopher’s list. _(8. watch a movie with him - his favorite is emperor’s new groove i think)_

“Wait,” Buck said, “have you considered that maybe he watches it so much because he thinks it’s _your_ favourite?”

Eddie stared at him with a weird expression, and he chuckled awkwardly. “I don’t…” 

Then, the genuine possibility seemed to hit him, and his expression shifted into something between bewilderment and alarm.

In the end, they picked a generic action movie on Netflix that neither of them had seen before, and ended up chatting over the top as it played in the background. The pasta tasted really good, and a throwaway compliment from Buck turned into a discussion about what they should cook next, and then they were bouncing recipe ideas off of each other based on how healthy it was and how likely it was that Christopher would like it. 

On screen, a warehouse exploded in a shower of glass and debris, cutting Eddie off mid-sentence. Buck and Eddie turned toward the television with wide eyes.

“Wait, what’s happening?” Eddie said, as a montage of people looking sad unfolded.

“I have no idea,” Buck replied. Did someone get killed? Maybe?

Half way through the awkward sex scene, Buck went into the kitchen to hunt for dessert and snacks. After rifling through the cabinets, he found the super secret snack cupboard of things Eddie didn’t want Christopher to know they had, and gleefully emptied it of half its contents.

“Oh, wow, I forgot I had these,” Eddie said as Buck reappeared in the living room and dumped a packet of twinkies beside him. Eddie picked it up and squinted at the packaging, before making a face and tossing it aside. “Yeah, no, expired eight months ago.”

“Why do you even have it?” Buck laughed as he settled next to Eddie, crossing his legs as he started to inspect the best before date on a pack of popcorn he’d found. It was still good, so he pulled open the packaging.

“I think it was leftover from a party? Or maybe Carla bought it…?” Eddie said distractedly as he looked between Buck and the movie. The sex scene had turned into a fight scene and now the male and female leads were throwing punches at each other while barely-dressed.

“Okay, well after this we’re going through your cabinet and throwing out everything expired before you poison Christopher.”

By the time the movie finished, it was already past ten p.m and they were both starting to yawn. They’d both worked full shifts during the day and all of it was catching up to them. As they cleaned up, Eddie asked Buck if he wanted to stay over.

It was hardly the first time Buck had spent the night, and he accepted without even thinking twice about it.

  
  


-

  
  


The next morning, Buck continued their cooking lessons by showing Eddie how to make the fluffy pancakes Christopher always raved about. And then, they were chatting over breakfast and Eddie was staring at him with a face of horror as Buck accidentally drowned his pancakes in maple syrup, and then scrambled to manage the excess. In the end, Buck solved his problem by pouring half of the syrup onto Eddie’s pancakes, as Eddie watched with a long-suffering, yet fond, expression.

Then, Eddie disappeared into the shower, and Buck emptied the dishwasher before loading it up again. By the time he was done the water was still running, and starting to get bored, Buck opened up a kitchen cabinet and started to empty it of canned goods.

_(9. clean up - sometimes when he looks stressed, i clean my room and he smiles??)_

“Oh, you weren’t kidding about the cleaning thing.”

Buck was half way through the first cabinet when Eddie’s voice suddenly sounded, and he turned around from comparing two cans of crushed tomatoes to find Eddie standing in the kitchen doorway, shirtless, sweats hung low on his hips as he towelled his wet hair. 

Buck swallowed, and managed to keep a straight face purely for the fact that he’d seen this version of Eddie more than just a few times, emerging from the showers and in the locker room.

“Eddie, you have food in here that expired in 2018.” Buck gestured at a jar of unopened mayonnaise sitting on the counter between them.

Eddie’s expression turned sheepish, and he ducked away again toward his room. By the time he re-emerged, fully dressed, Buck had moved onto another cupboard. And there were two clusters of food on Eddie’s kitchen counter, expired and unexpired. Mercifully, the unexpired pile was significantly larger, even if its counterpart was still concerningly big.

“We’re really doing this?” Eddie said, staring at the collection of cans, jars, and plastic packaging with something almost like fear.

“I mean, you’ll have an easier time using your pantry afterward,” Buck said as he pulled out packets of dry food. “And I’ve sort of been on a kick lately? Chimney was talking to me about this whole decluttering thing he did while he was on medical leave last year, and it sounded like a great idea.”

“Right,” Eddie said, picking up two jars and comparing them like he had no idea what he was doing. “Where you ask if things give you joy and say thanks to them.”

“Does this expired bag of chips give you joy?” Buck said, presenting Eddie with a yellow foil bag from the snack cupboard.

Eddie glanced at Buck, then put down the jars and took the bag. He studied it with a poorly hidden smile, before finally shaking his head. “No.”

“Tell it thank you, and put it in the bin.”

Eddie held the bag, looked toward Buck, and said a sincere: “Thank you, expired chips.” Before tossing it into the bin.

“Okay, how about this fancy salsa?”

“Wait, that’s where it went?” Eddie grabbed the jar from Buck’s hand. “I was looking for this!”

“Were you looking for it last year? Because it expired in November.”

Eddie sighed. “My parents brought it when they visited. Harassed me for ages asking if I’d tried it yet.”

“So it brings you joy?”

This time, Eddie burst out laughing. “More like the opposite.” He opened the jar, and reached around Buck to grab a spoon before he started scooping the contents into the trash.

Working in sync, Buck found the expired food as Eddie dumped out the contents and organized the cans and jars for recycling, taking a moment once in a while to thank the food for the joy they did or did not bring. Together, they cleaned out Eddie’s pantry and reorganized his storage (first-in, first out, new food at the back) and then moved onto his fridge. 

Which was the point that they realized that Eddie really needed to go grocery shopping. 

“You didn’t get… anything else when you got the stuff for dinner?” Buck said, as he stared at the empty shelves, and what looked like a rotting tomato in the crisper.

Eddie made a face. “You didn’t exactly ask for anything I didn’t already have.”

Which meant he never went grocery shopping in the first place. Buck picked out the sad rotting tomato, and they said goodbye to it before dropping it into the trash.

“Well, want to go check out that cool grocery store I found?” Buck said.

Neither of them had anything else planned that day, if grocery shopping needed to happen, then it made sense for them to go together.

Buck slipped a surprise under a fridge magnet right before they left.

  
  


-

  
  


“Oh wow, you really weren’t kidding,” said Eddie.

They stood together in the grocery store of legend, baskets on each arm as they beheld the wonder that was the dessert bar. It had self-serve macarons, pastries, cannoli, and a full gelato bar with a dozen different topping options. It had taken little persuading to drag Eddie here, even if it was quite a bit out of the way for them both. All Buck had to use was some puppy-eyed excitement and some upselling and then Eddie was chuckling and saying _fine_ , and how Buck was lucky Eddie didn’t have other plans.

And now, Buck was beaming with excitement as he took in the display before them. 

“This is it! This is the dessert bar I was talking about!” Buck turned toward Eddie, eyes wide with glee.

“That’s…” Eddie fell into speechless silence as he stared at the spectacle in awe, before he turned toward Buck and raised a curious brow. “You want a cone?”

Buck gaped in surprise, and then his grin grew even wider. No one had said that he wasn’t allowed to do the same thing more than once. _(3. ICE CREAM)_ His answer was an automatic yes. Then, he was pointing at different toppings as he asked the attendant for a scoop on a waffle cone. And finally, they were both trying not to drip their ice cream all over themselves as they started exploring the rest of the grocery store. 

There was the self-serve selection of gourmet pet treats with an assortment of buzzword labels Buck could play bingo with. They had every combination of options, from organic to locally-sourced to gluten-free, and even concerningly, vegan. Eddie had a serious conversation with the attendant standing there about the best treats for a dog that didn’t exist (golden retriever, very large and eager, had him for about… two years now?). And Buck sniffed at the different options, curious about how they tasted.

They found the temperature controlled cheese room labelled with little placards and tiny flags symbolizing the countries of origin, and spent half their time trying poorly to pronounce the foreign names. Buck spent far too long trying to convince Eddie that chaource had to be pronounced like chaos while ignoring the pained expressions of the expert standing by the door, whose help they had politely refused upon entering.

And finally, they were wandering the aisles doing serious shopping to stock up their fridge and pantries. Buck found a really interesting looking jar of something called cookie butter and put it into his basket, then looked up to find Eddie regarding him with an expression of deep doubt. 

Buck took it out and put it back. 

Eddie smirked at him and started walking further down the aisle, which is when Buck turned around and slipped the jar back into his basket before chasing after Eddie. Because who was Eddie to influence his grocery decisions, anyway?

It was weirdly fun, grocery shopping with Eddie. Buck wasn’t sure if it was just because Eddie had a way of making everything infinitely more enjoyable just by being there and being _Eddie_. But it was nice having Eddie to help him decide between two slightly different avocados and recommending the better brand of cleaning spray. None of it helped diminish Buck’s inappropriate fantasies of life as Christopher’s other Dad, but it was a surprisingly pleasant way to spend a Saturday morning.

Before long, both of them were loaded up on groceries. They checked out separately before taking all of it to their cars. And when it was time to say goodbye, Buck did it with a hug. ( _12\. LOTS OF HUGS_ )

Eddie froze in surprise, before he melted into it, and also squeezed Buck tight.

  
  


-

  
  


An hour later, when Buck was already home and lazy on the couch, his groceries packed away and thoughts on ideas for lunch, Buck’s phone buzzed with a new message from Eddie. 

For a moment, Buck wondered if he’d left something at Eddie’s place. And then, he opened the app to find himself staring at a photo of the crayon drawing he’d attached to Eddie’s fridge. It had been the one with him and Eddie fighting a fire together. And Eddie had sent it with the comment _‘Buckley what the hell is this??’_ followed by three crying-laughing emojis.

Buck grinned at his phone. ‘ _An original Evan Buckley masterpiece, that’s what it is.’_

‘ _Have you been taking lessons from Christopher?’_

_‘Did the stick figures give me away? :(’_

‘ _Why? When? I have so many questions, Buck.’_

_‘Thought it might cheer you up.’_

There was an extended wait between the moment his message came up as _read_ and the moment Eddie started to type again.

_‘I appreciate it, Buck.’_

Buck was just about to send back a smiley wink emoji when Eddie’s follow up message arrived.

_‘Your art is definitely as good as any nine year-old’s, don’t ever let anyone tell you different.’_

Buck sent back a heart-eyes emoji instead.

  
  


-

  
  


That night, in bed, Buck had just readied himself to go to sleep when his phone vibrated with a new message. He pawed at his bedside table blindly, looking for his phone, before he was squinting at his screen to find he’d received another message from Eddie.

_‘I think I take back what I said, grocery stores would make a terrible place for a date’_

Buck bit back laughter as he reached to turn on the bedside light. ‘ _You mean you don’t find vegetables sexy?_ ’ He sent the message alongside a few eggplant and cucumber emojis.

‘ _Did you just send me the eggplant emoji?’_

Buck raised an eyebrow at the response, and started inputting every emoji with lewd implication he could find. Then, another message from Eddie popped up on his screen.

‘ _How are there so many vegetable emojis?’_

Buck gaped, and the next message he received was a string of fruit and vegetables as Eddie apparently discovered, for the first time ever, the trove of emojis his phone had hidden. With a frown on his face, Buck squinted at the peach, carrot, and cherry emojis Eddie had sent, before deciding they probably didn’t mean anything.

He erased his emojis and typed out a response. ‘ _Did you honestly not know they were there?’_

_‘No?????’_

Then, almost immediately, a new message arrived. _‘Why would you ever need a dancer emoji?’_ Eddie followed up his message with said dancer emoji.

Buck laughed. ‘ _So you can play guessing games, obviously.’_ He sent the same dancer emoji back, alongside two wolf emojis. 

There was only a short wait before Eddie’s reply popped up. ‘ _Is that… dances with wolves.’_

Buck replied with four bell emojis. (Ding ding ding ding!)

Eddie’s reply was a shushing emoji, and two goat emojis.

‘ _Oh, that’s easy. Silence of the lambs_.’

And if Buck spent the next half an hour curled in bed, playing ‘guess the song/movie title’ with Eddie until he was struggling to keep his eyes open, well, no one was there to judge him.

  
  


-

  
  


Despite having spent almost an entire 24 hours with Eddie in the last two days, Buck spent his entire Sunday missing Eddie. Despite the annoyingly consistent desire to hear Eddie’s voice that plagued him all day, he did his laundry and cleaned his apartment, and resisted the temptation to pick up the phone and call Eddie to tell him about his day again.

It had been a week since Christopher left for camp and Buck was feeling great about his progress. He’d already ticked off almost half of the list and had ideas for how to complete most of the remaining items. If Eddie noticed the rise in Buck’s attention (and he had to have noticed), he hadn’t yet said anything about it, which Buck took as tacit approval and a sign that his Cheer Eddie Up plan was working out well. 

And so, on Sunday afternoon, about an hour before he was due to head in for his shift, Buck stared at Christopher’s list on his phone, trying to figure out what he was going to try and squeeze into this upcoming shift with Eddie. As he read the list for what felt like the hundredth time, he paused again on the one particular item he couldn’t quite get his head around.

  1. _do something adulty with him - i dont know buck im 9_



Buck wasn’t sure what ‘adulty’ meant either, and he was 29. It didn’t help that his brain immediately offered up ‘adult’ in the sense of R-rated activities, and that was a rabbit hole his imagination definitely didn’t need to go down when it came to Eddie.

So he decided to go back to it, sometime later, and spent the rest of his time playing video games.

  
  


-

  
  


_(6. tell him a knock knock joke - i dont have a book of knock knock jokes :-()_

“Hey Eddie! Knock knock!”

Everyone was lounging on the sofas, staring at books and phones. Buck and Eddie were sharing a sofa, and Eddie was leaning against an armrest, their legs were in a weird tangle. 

Eddie lowered his phone, and watched Buck with a cautious smile as he answered. “Who’s there?”

“Owls say.”

“Owls say wh-” Eddie cut himself off, and then looked outright offended when he stared at Buck with a face of disbelief.

“Come on, you have to say it.” Buck said with a grin and just the slightest plea in his tone.

Eddie took a deep breath and sighed, looking like he was in physical agony when he opened his mouth again. “Owls say who.”

“Yes they do!” Buck laughed, and then, everyone else was groaning or laughing around him.

Eddie was shaking his head, but he was laughing too. “Buck, that’s horrendous.”

“Oh, I have one!” Chimney announced, putting down his book. “Knock knock.”

There was a silence as Eddie, Buck, and Hen all stared at him.

“Well, someone say it!” Chimney said.

In the next second, everyone tried to reply at once and started talking over each other, until Hen finally won a bid for silence.

“Who’s there?” Hen said, her expression already unimpressed.

“Dishes.” Chimney grinned.

Hen’s face was one of cautious suspicion. “Dishes who?” 

“Dishes the LAFD!” Chimney announced with a laugh.

Everyone groaned, and Eddie knocked against Buck as he made a show of crumpling in pain.

“That’s worse than mine, Chim.” Buck said, chuckling.

“What, are we going to pause and tell people a knock knock joke before they can find out who we are?” Hen said.

“Come on guys, it’s just a joke.”

  
  


-

  
  


Later that same shift, they were called to attend an apartment fire. The building was well and truly ablaze by the time they arrived, and judging from the destruction, seemed to have started on the upper floors. Most of the building was already out in the street as their truck pulled up, and their truck passed dozens of faces stuck in shock and disbelief.

Bobby started issuing orders before they had even fully parked. Within minutes, Buck and Eddie were heading inside, side-by-side, climbing the stairs and knocking on doors to make sure absolutely everyone had made it out.

On the fifth floor, they broke down a door to find a little girl unconscious on the floor of her bedroom. Eddie almost immediately bent down next to her, applying oxygen before he gathered her into his arms. Buck did a quick search of the rest of the home and found that it was empty. The little girl had either been abandoned or was home-alone.

Eddie started carrying the little girl out, and Buck shouted for him to go on down first as he went to check the last apartment on the level alone. The building was becoming unstable and Bobby was calling him to come down. Then, Buck was rushing back down the stairs and running back into the street.

Almost instantly, he started looking around for Eddie, and found him by the ambulance talking to the little girl he’d rescued, who was now awake.

All of Buck’s worry dissolved the moment he saw Eddie again, standing there, fine and unharmed. And he smiled as he ran over to join Eddie’s side.

-

  
  


The next evening, the whole team gathered around the television to watch the nine o’clock news. They had seen news crews at the apartment blaze the night before, and everyone wanted to see if they could catch a glimpse of themselves on TV.

Eddie was one of the last to arrive, and the moment Buck caught sight of him, he squished into Hen with a grin to make room on the sofa. Eddie slotted himself in between Buck and the armrest, and the three of them barely squeezed in together on the two-seater.

“An apartment fire last night led to a dramatic rescue…”

Eddie shifted to get comfortable and slung his arm over the couch behind Buck. Then, someone else was leaning against the armrest on Hen’s end and they were somehow all squished together even more. Buck and Eddie’s sides and legs were pressed tight against each other, and Buck was trying very hard not to end up sprawled across Eddie’s lap as he watched a familiar burning building appear in the news footage.

Then, a shot of Eddie came on, and the camera followed him as he carried the little girl from the blaze. Eddie looked like a hero, lit in the bright red and orange hues of the flames. Everyone else started cheering and teasing. Buck turned toward Eddie with a bright-eyed grin to see his reaction, and then jerked back as he realized exactly how close they were sitting. Eddie’s face was right next to his, and he was looking back at Buck with a soft smile. Buck was almost certain it was just the light from the TV that cast Eddie’s cheeks in a faint pink when he turned back toward to watch the news.

The TV moved onto something about local politics, and as Hen got up, Buck shifted away from Eddie, feeling a little bit self conscious over how close they had been pressed together. Bit by bit, the others lost interest and moved on, until it was just the two of them watching the ads.

Did it count? Buck decided it would. _(15. cuddles on the couch)_

“Wanna play a game or something?” Buck said, his leg starting to bounce as the voiceover started listing a chain of side-effects for some new miracle drug for baldness.

“Sure,” Eddie replied. “What do you have in mind?”

_(10. play some video games - but dont let him win he always knows when you let him win)_

  
  


-

  
  


On their next shift, Bobby stared silently at Buck for what felt like a full minute after Buck suggested taking over making dinner that night. It was just that Eddie had been really quiet all day, fiddling with his phone constantly and looking antsy, and he didn’t smile so much even when Buck was chatting and joking with him. They were well into the second week of Christopher being away and not nearly close enough to his return, Eddie’s anxiety was most definitely peaking. 

So Buck knew that now was time to break out the soup. _(14. ask abuela how she makes the Magic Soup - dad really likes it)_

He’d called Isabel a week ago and scribbled down the recipe as she told it to him. When the question came out Buck had been fully prepared for her to ask him why and make him earn it. But instead, Eddie’s abuela had just passed along the treasured family recipe as a matter of fact, and it had been extremely flattering, if slightly confusing, to have received it.

When Bobby realized just how serious Buck was about his request, he relented, and offered to help. Buck couldn’t say no (the 118 kitchen was Bobby’s domain, after all), and they had a lot of food to make, so Buck pulled out the ingredients he’d prepped and hidden away in the back of the fridge as Bobby started pulling out the cutting boards and the soup pot. 

He had tried the recipe once already to test it, and it wasn’t too hard for him to put it together again. Though it was weird to be the one telling Bobby what to do for the first time ever, the two of them worked well together, prepping and chopping, and then the soup was boiling away on the stove as they started on the sides and garnishes to go with it. 

Every single second, Buck prayed that a call wouldn’t come in and ruin his plans. 

Which meant half way through prepping sides, the alarm began to ring. 

Buck turned off the flame with a sigh and went to suit up. It was a small electrical fire that they took care of in less than twenty minutes, and the entire time Buck was thinking about the soup he’d left on the stove. The moment they returned and parked the truck, Buck was jumping out and making for the kitchen, much to everyone else’s amusement.

He gave the soup a good stir and then turned the flame back on, and then leant against the counter to watch as it reheated. Bobby approached him with a look of amusement, and only teased him lightly as they got back to cooking. 

Mercifully, no new calls came in as they cooked. The delicious aroma of spices soon filled the loft around them, and they started to attract hungry firefighters to the dining table. Finally, the soup was ready to be served, and Buck beamed as even Bobby made an impressed face when he sampled it. 

Hen popped up to help, and she and Bobby began to serve everything into bowls as Buck went around the firehouse, calling everyone to dinner. Before long, the table was filling up, and Buck waved at Eddie and Chimney coming up the stairs as he put down the last of the bowls.

“Smells amazing!” Eddie said as he pulled out a chair to sit. Then, he looked down and paused, and stared at the bowls of soup, sides, and garnishes in front of him with something between excitement and confusion.

“Still a fan of soup?” Buck said as he sat down next to Eddie.

Eddie glanced over at Buck, eyes wide, and slipped into his seat. “What?”

Buck laughed softly, and reached out for Eddie’s hand. Eddie smiled and reached forward, and they gripped each other’s hands gently as Bobby said grace.

Then, everyone began to dig in. Buck reached for the bowl of avocado slices right in front of Eddie, and not-so-subtly watched him out of the corner of his eye. 

Next to Buck, Eddie frowned at the soup for a moment, before he took his spoon, scooped up a little, and drank it. Immediately, Eddie froze, before he was shoving another spoonful into his mouth, and then another as he reached for the sliced radish.

Buck hid his laughter and did his best to look innocent, smiling down at his own bowl before he also had a spoonful. It _was_ amazing, he thought, as the rich flavours burst across his tongue. Buck hummed, pleased with his success, and started to add garnishes to his meal in earnest.

For a moment, there was no other chatter aside from people asking each other to pass the food around. And then, everyone settled in to eat, and Buck became absorbed in conversation with Hen and Bobby as she told a story about the time Denny tried to cook breakfast on his own before anyone else in the house had woken up, and almost gave Hen a heart-attack.

“Bobby, where did you get this recipe?” Eddie said from beside Buck. 

“Oh?” Bobby glanced over at Eddie, and then toward Buck. “You’re gonna have to ask Buck, he’s the one who cooked tonight. I just lent him a hand.”

“Whaaaaaaaat?” Hen gasped, laughing. “No way. You made this, Buck?”

“This is _really_ good,” Chimney said, pointing at his bowl with his spoon. “You’ve come far, Buckaroo.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Buck laughed. “Well, I’ve been learning from Bobby for ages, so, I thought I’d treat you guys.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s _for us,_ ” Chimney nodded knowingly at Buck as he took a bite of bread. Buck glared at him to shut up.

“You really made this?” Eddie’s voice was quiet.

Buck turned toward Eddie, alarmed by the unfamiliar tone. His first instinct was that he’d screwed up somehow, but there was something in Eddie’s eyes, in the awed, uncertain way he was staring at Buck, that told him that wasn’t the case. 

“Yeah?” Buck said, not sure what he was seeing, if Eddie’s reaction was good or not.

Eddie’s gaze didn’t waver as Buck stared confusedly back at him. And it was like Eddie was searching for something in Buck’s eyes. But Buck didn’t know how to read his expression, there was something there like wonder, but also like doubt, like amazement, but also like fear.

“It’s good,” Eddie said when he finally looked back down, this time with a slight furrow in his brow.

Eddie’s words were positive. Yet there was something more there, and Buck didn’t know what it really meant. He didn’t know what just happened. But when he looked back toward the others, everyone was focused on their food, and no one was looking at him.

  
  


-

  
  


Buck was distracted for the rest of his shift, as he thought about Eddie’s weird reaction over and over. The most obvious explanation was that he had overstepped somehow, and the possibility suddenly made a lot of sense when Buck was texting Isabel like he’d promised to let her know that her recipe was a hit at the 118. Was it weird that Buck had been messaging Eddie’s abuela? That he had made Eddie’s family recipe? When he thought about it he realized he probably shouldn’t even _have_ the recipe, because it implied the conversations that had taken place without Eddie ever knowing. Did Eddie see it as an intrusion somehow? Buck started wondering if he shouldn’t hunt Eddie down and apologize.

Buck’s thoughts bounced all over the place, until during a moment of downtime, Bobby pulled him aside to a quiet corner.

“So do I need to give you the talk about workplace relationships?” was Bobby’s opening line.

Buck, now even more confused than he already was, said: “What?”

“Come on, Buck,” Bobby said with a smile. “You can be honest with me. I know I am your captain, but I’m also a friend.”

“I… yeah, Bobby, of course, I just… don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“Asking to cook dinner? The pozole for Eddie? Buck, I’m not blind.“

“The po-what?” Buck gaped.

“Pozole?” Bobby frowned. “Wait, Buck, you know that’s the name of the soup you made, right?”

Buck’s mouth fell open and his eyes went wide. Was it wrong to admit to Bobby he’d only asked abuela for the ‘magic soup’? That he had been referring to the soup as ‘magic soup’ this entire time? Of course it wasn’t just called ‘magic soup’. Of course it had an actual name. But Buck hadn’t known it or even thought about it until that very second.

“How-” Bobby said. “Where did you get the recipe if you didn’t even know what it was called?”

“Um…” Buck said eloquently. “Eddie’s… _abuela_?”

Bobby’s eyebrows shot up, and then furrowed as he tried to make sense of the situation. “Well that explains Eddie’s reaction, then. I’m not _wrong_ about where this is going, am I?”

“I don’t... Can we start again?” Buck said, getting more and more confused. “What are we talking about?”

“You and Eddie, Buck,” Bobby said. “There are policies about workplace relationships, you know that, right?”

“Wait,” Buck said. Bobby couldn’t mean what it sounded like he meant, right? “Are you… suggesting that Eddie and I are… dating somehow?”

“That’s… where you’re taking this, isn’t it?”

Buck burst out laughing. Why was everyone convinced that he was making some sort of attempt to woo Eddie? Yes, maybe he was giving Eddie a little more attention than before, but the man’s son was away at camp and the alternative was for Eddie to feel lonely, and surely everyone else could see that he was just trying to cheer Eddie up and distract him?

“Bobby, come on. Not you too,” he said with a groan. “Eddie and I are friends, he’s not into me like that. Everyone can tell.”

Bobby stared at him. “You actually believe that,” he said flatly.

Buck made a confused face at him, half shrugging, palms spread out. Everyone knew that Eddie didn’t like him back, right? 

Right?

Buck suddenly started to doubt.

Bobby sighed, and closed his eyes. “Look it’s… not my place to meddle in whatever is or isn’t going on between you two. But, just for the record, come see me if you ever need the paperwork.”

“Thanks… Bobby?” Buck said, hesitant, and anxious at the fact that he seemed to have upset Bobby somehow. “Wait, I’m not in trouble am I?”

“No, Buck. Just... get back to work.”

“Yes cap.” Buck said. And then, because he felt like he was supposed to be apologizing for something. “Sorry cap.”

Bobby just stared at him, and looked very, very tired.

  
  


-

  
  


When even Bobby was harassing him about the Eddie thing, Buck had to take a moment, and seriously consider if he wasn’t sending the wrong (right?) message with his attempts to distract Eddie from Chris. Because now that Buck thought about it, there was a little more hesitation in Eddie these days when he looked at Buck. And sometimes Buck thought he saw Eddie watching him, with a consideration in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

This was what Buck had been worried about, back when it all started. He had been worried he’d accidentally overstep with his good intentions, and then Eddie would show up with a restraining order or something, just like Maddie had received. But things had seemed to be going so well, and all of his worries had fallen to the wayside each time Eddie’s smile became brighter, and his steps became lighter, in Buck’s presence. 

It was just sometimes, it was hard to tell where the line was with Eddie. The two of them were best friends, and with that came countless privileges you didn’t get when you were just casual acquaintances. Best friend Buck could get away with hour-long phone calls, and sitting too close on the couch, and perhaps too-many hugs and bad jokes. It didn’t _have_ to mean anything that they didn’t want it to mean. And there was an understanding between them that Buck didn’t think he was imagining. If Eddie was uncomfortable he could simply pull away from the hugs, or say goodbye and end a call when it fell into companionable silence for the third time. But he never had, not even once. And if Eddie wanted more, he could just as easily close the distance, whenever they stood a bit too close or talked for perhaps too long or Buck had stared maybe too much. 

Buck had measured the distance between their lips countless times and he knew, it wasn’t very far. Eddie just had to take the lead and Buck would happily follow him wherever he wanted to go.

So the fact that Eddie never did or said anything must have meant that Buck understood things right. That all of this was correct and normal. This was just how their friendship worked, and Bobby, Chimney, and everyone else was being silly for suggesting it was anything more.

Despite everything else, that was what Buck told himself.

  
  


-

  
  


The day that Christopher would come home drew nearer, and Buck continued as he did before, making sure to keep an eye on Eddie and step in whenever it seemed like he was down or was missing Christopher. They played racing games together and Buck beat Eddie every single time, until they switched to a fighting game and Eddie started thrashing Buck every round. He made sure to give Eddie extra hugs whenever he could, and made his way steadily through his book of jokes.

(“Hey Eddie, did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“Chimney threw away Bobby’s favorite herb.”

“Really? Why?”

“Well, because he’s a _thyme_ waster!”

“...”

“Eddie? Eddie come back. Eddie!”)

Slowly, but steadily, the days were rolling by, yet a quarter of Buck’s list still remained unfinished. The ones remaining were also the hardest for him to explain or justify, and for days, Buck wracked his brain trying to come up with a way to pull off Christopher’s most indelicate requests.

And then, one afternoon, a call came in like an intervention from God.

Buck hadn’t even processed where they were headed, so focused was he on his assault of bad puns for the day. Eddie groaned and laughed until even Bobby asked him why he was being so dramatic, it wasn’t like he was being _pun_ ished. And Buck was still laughing when they arrived at their destination, and he hopped out the truck to find himself staring at the sign for the Ocean Gallery Aquarium

_(11. the aquarium!! he really likes going to the aquarium with me!)_

Buck gaped at the sign, unable to believe what he was seeing. Around him, the team grabbed their bags and gear, and started rushing toward the front doors.

“Buck?”

Eddie, a few steps ahead, had turned around toward him with a questioning look. Buck immediately snapped out of his shock, and took one of Eddie’s bags before following him up the stairs.

He pushed through the glass doors behind Eddie, and eyed the giant model shark suspended in the foyer, as he walked in and approached the ticket counter. Bobby was gathered there with the others, and was deep in conversation with a woman dressed in a manager outfit. 

“Where’s our patient?” Buck said as he approached. Dispatch had said something about a suspected cardiac event, but everyone in the foyer seemed fine, as far as he could see.

Chimney just shrugged at him as the manager explained that she hadn’t heard of anyone in the building calling 911.

Buck’s heart sank as he listened, realizing they had no idea where the patient was since dispatch had only given them an address and no additional details. He exchanged a glance with Hen, who looked as worried as Buck felt. Beside Buck, Eddie was glancing between their captain and the manager as the discussion continued. Chimney was busy scanning the foyer. 

After a few more words, Bobby turned toward them.

“What do we do, cap?” Eddie said.

“It doesn’t look like it was any of the staff who called, and the manager is radioing everyone inside to keep an eye out, I’m going to stay here in case she hears anything. Hen and Chimney, I want you two to go in via the exit and work backwards, keep an eye out for our caller and ask if anyone has seen or heard anything. Buck and Eddie, you two go in the front and do the same. This aquarium is one big loop and you guys are not going to meet in the middle without finding the patient, am I understood?”

“Yes cap,” Buck said with a nod as the others all confirmed the same.

Then, Buck and Eddie were dashing for the entrance, and walking past tanks filled with fish and sealife as they shouted out for their caller.

“LAFD, does anyone need help?”

“Has anyone called for paramedics?”

Buck scanned the dark corridors desperately as they wound their way through the aquarium, ignoring the confused and alarmed faces of the visitors they encountered. They made their way past the tropical fish and the mollusks. Buck was distracted for a brief second by a color-shifting octopus as they passed by it, and he caught Eddie gaping in turn at a giant jellyfish as it drifted lazily in its tank. 

Eventually, they found their way to the tunnels of the ocean tank. Fish were swimming all around them, and Buck was trying to resist gawking at the giant manta ray drifting over their heads when their radios crackled to life with Bobby’s voice.

“We just got a report, the patient is at the back of the penguin exhibit, staff think they just found him.”

“Copy, Cap,” Eddie radioed in response. “Buck and I are on our way.”

Hen’s voice also sounded over the radio, saying they were heading right over.

“Penguin exhibit?” Buck looked toward Eddie, brows furrowed. He had no idea where that even was.

Eddie, lit up in blue by the water, pulled out a map from his pocket Buck had never even seen him pick up. He unfolded it as Buck moved to his side, and they scanned the map together to find that the penguin display took up the entire top floor of the three storey building.

Buck and Eddie exchanged a glance, and went for the nearest staircase.

By the time they made it to the patient, Chimney and Hen were already there, bent over a man laying on the floor. There was a circle of concerned people all around them, and Buck and Eddie carefully squeezed their way through the crowd and started herding people back to give the paramedics more space.

From what Buck could see, Chimney and Hen had the situation well under control, and the patient seemed to be conscious and aware. People kept crowding closer, and Buck had to move around to keep them, especially the young children, from getting too close. Behind the humans, a group of penguins had also gathered, and were regarding them curiously from behind the reinforced glass.

Buck glanced over at Eddie, and found him also watching the penguins in between herding people, a soft smile on his face.

It wasn’t quite what Buck had been hoping for when he’d considered taking Eddie to an aquarium, but Buck was going to take it. 

  
  


-

  
  


Then, Buck blinked, and the two weeks were coming to an end.

It was the night before Christopher came back from camp, and Buck still had _six_ things left on his list. He had waited too long and it was time to do or die, make or break. Buck had always known he was going to disappoint Christopher no matter what, but he could still control how bad it would be, and it wasn’t over yet.

Both Buck and Eddie had the evening off. And Buck knew, from personal experience, that time off was often the worst when you were alone. Without work or friends to distract you, it was easy to get stuck with your own thoughts. He had felt the worst of it during the lawsuit, in between ‘light duty’ and the silence from his friends.

So, with a dogged determination to _finish as much of the list as he could_ and to _distract Eddie on his night off_ , Buck showed up at Eddie’s door sometime past eight o’clock with his arms full of pillows, cushions, and sheets. He had dug out everything in his linen cabinet and also spent twenty minutes Googling how to do the thing before driving his way to Eddie’s house. All he had done before he hopped into the car was message Eddie to check if he was home and to let him know that he was coming over.

Trying to stay balanced, Buck knocked awkwardly with one hand. There was the sound of footsteps, and then, Eddie opened his front door with a smile that immediately froze on his face as he took in the mountain of linen and the suggestion of a man carrying it all. 

“Uh, what’s happening?” Eddie said.

_(16. build a fort!)_

Buck pushed his way into the house, barely able to see Eddie or where he was going for the mountain of pillows and fabric in his face.

“We’re making a pillow slash blanket fort,” Buck said, determinedly making his way deeper into Eddie’s house relying on memory alone.

Buck couldn’t see Eddie’s reaction, but a few seconds later, Eddie shut the door and started to follow after him.

“Wait, what?” Eddie said. “Why?”

“A better question,” Buck said, as he dumped everything onto the floor before Eddie’s couch, “is why _not_.”

Eddie gaped at him, and then seemed to seriously attempt to think and come up with an answer.

Hands on his hips, Buck stared Eddie down, challenging him, daring him to say no. 

“Well-” Eddie started to speak.

“Look, if it makes you feel better, tell yourself you’re practicing for Christopher.”

Eddie stared at Buck for a moment longer, silent. But Buck’s words had done the trick, and the doubt on Eddie’s face settled into something roguish and playful. Then, Eddie was shaking with poorly suppressed laughter.

“In that case,” Eddie said. “I think we’re going to need some more pillows.”

  
  


-

  
  


Somehow, in the space of Eddie’s living room, the two of them had none of the synchronicity and understanding that they usually had on shift. Instead of seamless teamwork, one teasing comment led to the other being bopped by a pillow led to the other retaliating and eventually to the entire construction coming down. It didn’t help that Eddie took off to look for his Christmas lights half way through or that Buck stole a beer out of the fridge to drink as he Googled (again) the best way to construct a fort.

But between the two of them, Buck and Eddie managed to construct a decent blanket-slash-pillow fort in about half an hour, with only one semi pillow fight and two partial collapses in the process. They had propped up the sides with Eddie’s dining chairs and dragged the cushions from the couch onto the floor. And then Eddie had wound lights through the bars of the chairs and plugged it in, and the entire thing was lit in a soft yellow glow.

When it was finally done, Buck and Eddie leant against the dining table and surveyed their handiwork as they nursed beers in their hands. Buck had no idea what exactly Eddie was feeling, but Buck was quietly proud, happy that he could check another thing off of Chris’ list. The whole thing had been ridiculous but also good fun. Whoever said grown adults couldn’t make an evening out of making a blanket fort?

Buck lifted his bottle to his lips, and took a long drink, when the silence between them began to stretch on for a little too long.

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” Eddie said.

Buck turned toward Eddie, slightly surprised he wasn’t being kicked out now that the shenanigans were over. “You sure?”

Eddie shrugged. “Well, we’ve gone to all the trouble of putting this up, might as well make use of it?”

There was a question in Eddie’s eyes like even he wasn’t sure if the suggestion was ridiculous or not. But they’d come this far already doing childlike things, and Buck couldn’t say no to the prospect of hanging out with Eddie _inside_ the fort they’d worked quite hard to build. 

Buck went to grab snacks while Eddie went to find his laptop. And passing by the fridge, Buck paused, seeing Eddie had left his silly picture on the fridge, and it was displayed proudly next to Christopher’s own works. A little flame of joy lit up inside of him, and he was smiling as he dug through the cupboards for snacks.

When Buck crawled into the fort, balancing a big bowl of microwave popcorn, Eddie was already inside, long legs stretched out and his laptop in his lap. 

“No expired food in your cabinet this time,” Buck teased, “who would have thought?”

Eddie glared at him very gently as he loaded up a streaming site, and then reached out to grab some popcorn and popped it in his mouth.

Buck set down the popcorn and leant back against the pillows, as Eddie placed the laptop on the floor between them. They decided, after scrolling for what had to have been fifteen minutes, to try and rewatch the movie both of them had barely paid attention to a week ago. Even though it was a generic film with a paper thin plot, it was something they had both been interested in watching.

Eddie pressed play, and this time they both settled in to watch it properly. 

As the film progressed, Buck’s posture grew more and more atrocious, and he sagged against the pillows until his neck was all but bent at a forty-five degree angle.

“You okay there?” Eddie said, after five minutes of casting increasingly worried glances toward him.

“Yeah, fine.”

Buck stayed that way, tossing and turning a bit every now and then, until, forty-minutes in, Eddie audibly sighed next to him. Then, he was moving the snacks out of the way before shifting closer and stretching out next to Buck. Their legs and sides were all but pressed together when Eddie moved the laptop onto their laps so it was easier for them both to watch without breaking their necks.

It was a bit like that night sitting in front of the news again. Buck settled in, tucking himself against Eddie, and another twenty minutes passed before it hit him that he could check off number seventeen on Chris’ list as well.

_(17. cuddles IN the fort!!!)_

They had done a really good job of building the fort, and a really poor job of picking a movie. The pillows were fluffy and soft while the movie dragged on and on with terrible acting, and it didn’t help that Buck still half-remembered the plot and a good chunk of the later scenes. Buck was getting more and more bored with each minute, and his body began to remind him that he had been awake since 5 a.m., and had also pulled a 12 hour shift before he went home and raided his own linen cupboard for the sake of making Christopher proud. 

Eddie’s body was warm at Buck’s side. And Buck’s eyes started to close of their own accord as a sadness montage started on screen. Each time he tried, it was harder to open his eyes again, until Buck decided to just keep them closed and listen to the movie instead.

Buck snapped awake to the sound of explosions going off. He shifted and glanced around, realizing he had accidentally fallen asleep on Eddie’s shoulder. Buck felt so comfortable that it took him a moment before he even remembered that he should move away from Eddie.

As he did, Eddie glanced over at him casually, then turned his gaze back to the movie.

Buck frowned, and blinked blearily at the screen. The movie was much quieter than he remembered it being. Had Eddie turned down the volume? The villain was making some sort of dramatic speech, and Buck remembered that this was the climax of the two and a half hour film. Wait, how much of this had he slept through?

The action scenes in the film weren’t half bad, and Buck coasted through the remainder of the film, half-awake and exhausted. Before long, the credits were rolling. 

Neither of them moved as the credits song played, some sort of rock ballad that sounded a little bit familiar. Buck stared at the glowing lights, faintly thinking that he probably should leave now.

Then, he remembered. Christopher was going to be back tomorrow, and Buck still had three or four things to complete. 

Buck had been surprised that Eddie had even said yes to the blanket fort. It had been a last-ditch effort, a Hail Mary in the hope that Buck wouldn’t crash and burn too badly when he told Christopher that he hadn’t made it through the list. But sixteen (seventeen?) completed items was better than fourteen, it was still a solid B-. Buck could live with that. He had done alright.

Was this it, then? Time for the mission to end?

“Hey Buck?”

Eddie’s voice tugged Buck back toward reality. “Yeah?”

“Thanks for uh… keeping me company these past two weeks.” Eddie said, his voice soft. “You didn’t have to. But it was… nice. Thanks.”

“Oh.” Buck breathed, eyes growing wide. It was strange, but Buck had never really expected Eddie to acknowledge all of the silly things he had been doing. People were just supposed to roll their eyes and laugh fondly at his shenanigans. Tease him about it, maybe. Tell him off like they knew better, usually. But no one was supposed to take any of this seriously. 

_(18. tell him its gonna be ok)_

“That’s… fine, it’s nothing, man,” Buck said. “I mean, even if Christopher isn’t around, you still got me, you know? It’s all gonna be okay.”

Buck dared to look at Eddie then, to find Eddie staring at him, a little surprised, taken aback. There was that look in the depths of his eyes again, the one that Buck couldn’t make sense of.

“Why are you doing so much, Buck?” Eddie said. “This has just been… a lot. I mean, I’m grateful, but...”

Buck shifted uncomfortably. “I just… I wanted you to be happy. It sucks to be alone, you know?”

Eddie watched him, and Buck had never quite seen him look so lost. It made him want to say something more, to say something _right,_ something that meant Eddie would never question Buck like this again. There had to be the words for this, somewhere, words that would let Eddie know how much Buck adored him and how much he _deserved_ every good thing that existed in the world and more. Something that would make Eddie understand.

Suddenly, every desperate, errant thought Buck had buried was right there, bubbling, rising in his chest, surging forward.

“I love you, Eddie, you know that right?” 

It wasn’t until the words left his mouth that Buck remembered he should have aimed for supportiveness. His tone should have been light, should have been casual and reassuring, yet the words he’d just spoken had none of the right inflection. 

Buck’s words sounded like a confession, and there was no mistaking the meaning of it when his voice had shook the way it did. Somewhere along the line, Buck had forgotten the natural weight those three words had always carried when it came to Eddie. 

And just like that, they were both awakened to the truth. 

Eddie stared at Buck with something like shock, like panic, behind his wide brown eyes. Buck hadn’t planned for this, he hadn’t meant for it to turn out like this. But despite weeks of terror and dread, fear of blindly finding himself in this very moment, Buck somehow wasn’t scared. Buck had stumbled right over the cliff’s edge without thinking, but though he was in freefall, Eddie was still here. And deep inside of Buck there was an unshakeable belief, in Eddie, in the two of them. Buck knew that Eddie wouldn’t let him hit the ground.

So Buck did something selfish, something desperate and instinctive that he might never do again. Buck took the lead, and he closed the distance and brushed his lips over Eddie’s.

The moment Eddie stiffened was the same moment the spell over Buck broke and he slammed back into reality. Buck reeled back, realizing what he’d just done, realizing the monumental nature of this particular fuck up. 

Eddie was staring at him, shock, disbelief, and something else familiar and gentle in his eyes Buck didn’t dare to try and decipher. In that moment Buck was sure he’d overstepped. He hadn’t meant to kiss Eddie, he hadn’t even meant to confess he loved him. He had spent two weeks obsessing over the possibility but he had never planned to actually _do_ it. Why did he just do that? Eddie wasn’t interested in him, Buck knew that. He _knew_ that. Now he’d fucked it all up just like he knew he would. 

“Buck, what are you…”

“I, uh… you know what? I should go.” Buck said, scrabbling for the exit. By some miracle, he didn’t knock down the entire blanket fort as he crawled back out, and he clambered to his feet, making a straight line for the front door.

“Buck? Buck.” Eddie’s voice was loud behind him. “Buck, wait. You can’t just say that and-”

Buck slammed the front door shut as he ran for his car.

  
  


-

  
  


On the one hand, Buck had pretty much completed the list in one moment of temporary insanity. And now both _(19. tell him you love him!!!)_ and _(20. try kisses??)_ were most definitely checked off. On the other hand, he had fucked up his friendship in the exact way he was terrified of doing.

Buck drove home in a panicked daze, and then proceeded to have a minor breakdown right there in his apartment, right up until a loud, urgent knock sounded at his front door.

Confused, Buck stared at his door until the knock sounded again, and he finally moved toward it and hesitantly pulled it open. 

Eddie stood on the other side, arms full of Buck’s sheets and pillows.

“You left all of your stuff behind,” Eddie said as Buck stood there, frozen in a weird reversal of their situation from just a few hours ago.

Buck reached forward and took his sheets, suddenly feeling ridiculous, and no small amount of stupid. 

“Can I come in?” Eddie said. 

“Yeah, of course,” Buck mumbled, hiding his embarrassment behind his sheets as he moved aside and let Eddie inside. 

Eddie walked in, and closed the door before he followed Buck to the couch. Buck dumped all of his linen into one big pile and then stared at it glumly, not making eye contact with the man he’d just confessed his feelings for and then kissed.

“I just…” Eddie sighed, “you didn’t have to run away like that, Buck.”

In that moment of pure panic after the kiss, running away had seemed like the most important thing Buck could do. But now, Buck’s panic had settled somewhat. And the fact that Eddie had followed him and was now inside his apartment, acting disturbingly normal, just made Buck’s dramatic overreaction feel even more dumb and disproportionate.

Buck took a deep breath. “I know. Look, I’m sorry, it all came out wrong, I got carried away, and I panicked. I- It was so stup-”

“It’s fine, Buck.” Eddie said, and then interrupted with a glare when Buck opened his mouth to apologize some more. “Buck!” 

Buck went silent, terrified of what Eddie was going to say. 

“I love you too.”

Every thought came to a screeching stop. Had Buck just heard what he thought he heard? This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Eddie wasn’t supposed to say this. Eddie was supposed to apologize that he didn’t return Buck’s feelings, and then tell him it didn’t change anything about their friendship even though it obviously would. 

“Buck… these last two weeks. Everything you’ve done.” Eddie said slowly, stop-start, something shy, almost embarrassed in his expression as he stared at the floor between them. “It’s… I don’t know how to thank you for it all.”

Eddie was supposed to slowly grow more and more distant, until Buck was miserable and alone and depressed again having ruined one of the best friendships he’d ever had. 

“Every time you showed up, everytime you made a dumb joke or just told me about your day… When we were cooking, when we were at the _grocery store_ . It was… I just, I couldn’t stop _thinking_ , about how much I wanted it all. How much I didn’t… want it to stop, didn’t want to say _goodbye_ . Buck, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how much I want _you_.”

Buck had played this scenario out hundreds of times in his imagination, and this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

“And it… isn’t even just for these last two weeks. For _so long,_ Buck, I’ve- I want you to be happy too. And I don’t want you to be alone, not if you think you might also be happy… with me.”

Buck, stuck dumb, blinked at Eddie. “You do?” he said, disbelieving, unsure.

“Yes?” Eddie laughed. “I love you too, Buck.”

This was everything that Buck had ever wanted, but also, somehow, it was none of what Buck had wanted at the sametime. Buck almost wanted to take it all back, to go back in time and redo it all. He loved Eddie, but it shouldn’t have come out like this. It shouldn’t have happened this way. Not if there had ever been a chance that Eddie might love him back.

“I-” Buck stared at Eddie, choking on fear, and a new, rising panic. “Can I… can I show you something?”

Eddie, who had been staring at Buck with so much eager hope and joy, shifted into confusion. “Yes?”

Nodding, Buck stepped back, and then dashed away to dig through his drawers. He needed to find Chris’ list. Eddie had to see it, and understand that there was more to what he thought was something as simple as Buck magically knowing the right things to do. And maybe, if Eddie decided he still loved Buck after seeing that Buck’s decisions and actions these past two weeks hadn’t fully been his own, that would make Eddie’s words real somehow, make all of it believable.

Buck swallowed curses as he rifled through drawer after drawer with no success. He’d taken a photo of the list right after he first got it, and then put it away somewhere safe. And now, of all times, he couldn’t remember where that place was. 

“Do you… need a hand?” Eddie stood beside the staircase, and was regarding the chaos Buck was creating with a look of growing amusement.

“No!” Buck said, and then paused. “Actually, wait, yes. Do you see anything around here that looks like something Christopher could have written?”

“Uh…”

Eddie joined Buck in searching, and Buck went back to going through his furniture. Pulling open the drawer full of art supplies, Buck looked for the list, and found something else instead that made him smile. His other drawings, the ones of himself, Eddie, and Christopher, were sitting inside. He pulled them out, and then turned around toward Eddie with a grin. 

“Hey, look what I foun...” Buck’s words trailed off as he saw the sheet of paper in Eddie’s hand, and recognized the colorful handwriting across it. The smile slowly slipped from his face.

Eddie stared at the list, his expression blank as he read through each line.

“Eddie?” Buck said, his voice small.

“Buck, what’s this?” Eddie said, his words painfully soft.

“That’s Christopher’s list,” Buck said, waiting for Eddie’s verdict. Eddie would realize now, that Buck wasn’t really the person Eddie thought he was. He’d see now, that Buck had cheated his way into all of this. That he didn’t deserve Eddie’s confession.

“Did you…” Eddie’s hand, and the list, fell to his side. “Have you been following a goddamn list, these whole two weeks?” He turned toward Buck then, fury simmering in his eyes, drawn in the tense line of his shoulders.

“Okay Eddie I can explain-”

Eddie’s expression shifted into doubt, but didn’t say anything, and he scrutinized Buck like he was challenging him to lie.

“When you let me look after Christopher before he went to camp, he gave me the list, and made me promise to do everything on it.”

Eddie’s eyes closed, and he took a deep breath as he nodded. “So…” 

Eddie looked so devastated, Buck didn’t know what to say. Eddie was going to change his mind now, Buck knew it. Eddie was going to decide that he didn’t really love him after all, when he saw that Buck was just Buck, and not anyone so special.

“When you told me… that you loved me…” Eddie said, with a disbelieving, pained breath. “When you kissed me?”

Confusion shrouded Buck’s mind as he tried to make sense of Eddie’s reaction. Christopher’s list had asked Buck to tell Eddie he loved him, and to kiss him, but Buck hadn’t ever planned to follow through on it. Buck hadn’t meant for it to come out like this but it had happened anyway. And in this unexpected, roundabout way, he’d done the exact things that Christoper had asked of him.

He had done what Christopher asked of him.

The realization hit Buck like a punch to the jaw. No. No no no no no. Buck took a half step back as fresh panic overrode his thoughts and he realized what it looked like. When was he going to stop reacting and start thinking? He hadn’t meant to imply that the only reason he had kissed Eddie and told him he loved him was because of the list. It might have had some influence on his actions, but it didn’t mean Buck’s words hadn’t been genuine.

Eddie’s expression went blank, and Buck realized he had hesitated too long. Eddie started to nod, and his gaze flickered around the room, looking everywhere but at Buck as he blinked back what looked like tears. 

“I- Eddie.” Buck struggled to find his words again. “It’s not what it looks like.”

“Don’t- Just fucking… Don’t.” 

“Eddie, I swear to God-”

This time, Buck was the one shouting at the door as it slammed in his face.

  
  


-

  
  


_Eddie?_

_Eddie can we please talk._

_It’s not what you think._

_I mean it is what you think but it’s also more complicated than that Eddie please just answer my call._

  
  


-

  
  


Eddie ignored Buck completely for the next two days. And even when Buck showed up to their next shift together, ready with a thousand apologies on the tip of his tongue, it was only to learn that Eddie had traded his shift to spend a little extra time with Christopher.

Perhaps it was a good thing, because no matter how Buck tried to frame his apology, nothing sounded right in his head. It wasn’t until the morning after that Buck had calmed enough from his panic to finally stop and seriously think about what’d done, and realized just how stupid and fear-driven every single one of his actions had been.

How did Buck even begin to explain the way he had been so wrapped up in his own convictions, in his certainty that Eddie would change his mind about being in love with Buck the moment he saw the list, that he forgot what else its contents suggested? And the fact that Buck had hurt Eddie that way, that he had accidentally implied that his confession had never been serious, just made him feel even worse.

In the end, it was Hen who found Buck hiding in the ladder truck late in the afternoon, rereading the same paragraph of his book over and over. He started when Hen opened the door and climbed in, and then watched as she settled on the seat across and turned a knowing gaze onto him.

“Alright, what’s wrong, Buck?” Hen said. “You’ve been hiding in here for way too long.”

Buck closed his book, and started toying with the edges of the cover. For a moment he thought about lying. But with every passing hour Buck’s terror was climbing higher and higher. And though it was illogical, he was starting to convince himself that Eddie was going to block him out of his life for good. _Just don’t do it again_ , he’d said, the last time Buck had messed up.

“I… did something stupid.” Buck said. “Now Eddie is mad at me.”

Hen nodded, and didn’t look surprised. Buck didn’t know if that was reassuring or not.

“So?” Hen said. “What did you do?”

It was such a stupid mistake, and such a dumb misunderstanding that stood between him and Eddie. Buck swallowed. He didn’t want to admit it, but the words came out anyway. 

“You know how… everyone’s been teasing me, about my feelings for Eddie?” Buck said. “Telling me I should just tell him?”

Hen studied him for a moment. “Oh Buck… did you?”

Buck nodded, and couldn’t stand to look Hen in the eyes, didn’t want to see her pity.

“I’m so sorry,” Hen said softly. “I’m disappointed in Eddie, even if he didn’t return your feelings he should have reacted more maturely than this.”

“No. No,” Buck sighed. “That… that’s not what happened.”

“What do you mean?”

Haltingly, Buck explained everything from the start. From the list, to the fort, to the confessions and misunderstanding that followed. In a moment of selfish weakness, he’d played with Eddie’s feelings without even meaning to do it. 

“So the problem is… he didn’t think you were serious?”

Buck nodded, though it wasn’t quite as simple as that.

Hen laughed. “Oh Buck, you’re going to be fine.”

“He won’t even talk to me.” Buck groaned. How could Hen be so positive?

“Look, just give him some time,” Hen said. “He’ll come around. He loves you back, after all.”

“I don’t- What if he actually doesn’t? Maybe it was just some… spur of the moment thing, you know? He was lonely without Christopher and...”

“You can’t honestly believe that, do you, Buck?”

“I just…” Buck didn’t know how to explain this terror inside of him, how for so long he’d been _certain_ that Eddie didn’t and wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) ever return his feelings, that the moment Buck told him he would lose one of the best things in his life. He couldn’t take Eddie leaving him too. 

“I don’t know.” Buck said. “People just… never seem to love me in the same way I love them.”

Abby, Ali, even Maddie, everyone he’d dared to love seemed to always leave him in the end.

A look of sadness crossed Hen’s face. She reached out then, and grabbed Buck’s hand, squeezing it tight. “Do you trust Eddie, Buck?”

That was the truth of it, wasn’t it? Buck hadn’t trusted Eddie. He hadn’t trusted that Eddie would love him the same way, that he wouldn’t turn around and walk away if he saw that Buck wasn’t as perfect as he had appeared, that he wouldn’t run away screaming if Buck dared to let him know exactly how much he meant. He hadn’t trusted Eddie not to hurt him. And it had been easier to avoid the blow altogether than to give Eddie the power to deliver it himself. When Buck couldn’t avoid the truth anymore, Buck had made that decision for Eddie and ran away first.

Then, even when Eddie was laying his feelings bare, and letting himself be vulnerable, Buck had just ignored it all. He had only wanted Eddie to prove him right, to show Buck that he wasn’t what Eddie truly wanted.

That Eddie couldn’t be trusted.

And it had been so selfish. Even if his decisions had been born of raw panic and instinct, none of it had been fair. Not to Eddie, not to himself. And Buck saw now, just how stupid he had been, letting his own fear make his decisions for him before Christopher had ever made that list. 

Eddie had stuck by him through so much. He’d been there when Maddie had been kidnapped, had stayed with Buck through his injury and physical therapy, had hunted him down when he was wallowing in misery after quitting his job, even after Buck had gone and lost Christopher in the tsunami, he hadn’t pulled away. 

Through it all, Eddie had always trusted Buck. So why couldn’t Buck trust him back?

There had been a moment, when he had confessed to Eddie, when he had kissed him, that Buck hadn’t feared anything. In that moment he had felt so confident that Eddie wouldn’t let him down. And Buck grasped for that feeling again, that soft, steady conviction that had filled him and left him with only a sense of peace. Where had it come from? How did he find it again?

“I want to,” Buck said in the end. “I want to trust him. But I _hurt him_ , Hen, I was so stupid, and I let him down.”

_Just don’t do it again_ , Eddie had said. But Buck had done it, he had gone and done it again and he had hurt Eddie without meaning to.

“What if he doesn’t forgive me?” Buck continued, his voice quiet.

“Buck.” Hen said. “He told you he loves you.”

Buck just stared at Hen, helpless, uncomprehending.

Hen studied him for a moment, and then, something like guilt settled across her face. “I mean, yeah, your timing sucked, but he’s going to forgive you, Buck.”

Buck knew that there wasn’t any reason Eddie shouldn’t, couldn’t. What he had done was stupid, it was bad, but it wasn’t unforgivable, surely. Yet it didn’t mean that the _what if_ didn’t drift insidiously at the back of his mind. _What if_ Eddie decided he didn’t want Buck after all? That he didn’t trust him? _What if_ there were no second chances this time around?

_(Just don’t do it again.)_

For a moment, they were both silent, and Hen watched Buck, something soft yet sad in her eyes. 

“You really think so?” Buck said at last.

“Buck, that’s what love is,” Hen said with a small laugh. “It’s understanding when someone makes a stupid mistake, it’s believing in someone even when they fail you, and it’s trusting the good in each other in that moment of disappointment, and doubt.”

Buck stared at Hen as her words slowly sank in.

“Do you love Eddie, Buck?”

  
  


-

  
  


Buck thought about Hen’s words for the rest of the day, as he looked again and again at his silent phone. Eddie still hadn’t responded to any of his messages or calls. But they would see each other at work sooner or later, so Buck shoved his jumbled thoughts aside and focused on getting through the day, all the while ignoring the worried or confused looks everyone else was casting his way. He dodged the few questions he received and was switched on enough that he didn’t get told off by Bobby. And he took it as a win when he made it to the end of his shift that night without incident, and changed back into street clothes to head home. 

For the entire trip back, Buck thought about what he would say to Eddie when he saw him again. And he was so stuck in his own head he didn’t notice Eddie outside his apartment until his name was being called. 

“Buck?”

Eddie was standing by the entrance to his apartment building, hands in his pockets like he’d been waiting there for a while.

Buck abruptly stopped. “Eddie?” 

“Buck, hey,” Eddie shifted as he walked forward. “I uh, wanted to talk to you.”

Buck struggled to make out his expression in the dark. “You… didn’t reply to any of my messages.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I just… I thought this was something we should do face-to-face.”

A familiar cocktail of dread, fear, and uncertainty, swirled together inside Buck, as his old doubts began to push back toward the surface. “Okay?”

“I’m sorry.” Eddie said.

Did Eddie just. Did he just apologize? “Wait, what?”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said again. “I’m sorry about the way I handled things that night, how I ran out without letting you finish explaining. And I’m sorry for ignoring you for the last few days..”

Buck wasn’t sure what to do with this. He had expected to be the one apologizing. “You are?”

Eddie took a deep breath, and then sighed. “Look, Buck… I- I know you’re not the type of person to take advantage of someone else like that. I mean, it took me a moment to calm down enough to remember it. But… I know you, Buck. And I know what I’ve been seeing for the past… weeks, months. I trust you, and... I believe you when you say it wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Oh.” It wasn’t fair how Eddie kept surprising him like this. None of this matched how Buck had planned it out in his head, and Buck didn’t have time to rewrite the script.

“I handled… all of it badly.” Eddie said. “And I’m sorry. But I’m still going to need you to explain what exactly was going on.”

“You’re not mad at me?”

Eddie let out a long breath. “Did you mean it, when you kissed me that night?”

Buck nodded, a little too eagerly.

Eddie’s lips twitched with a smile. “Then no, I’m not mad at you. I admit I don’t really understand why you wanted me to find Christopher’s list. I mean, you had to have known how that would make everything look, right?”

“I-I didn’t… think of that?” Buck huffed out an embarrassed laugh. “This is going to sound really stupid, but I just thought if you saw it… and if you realized that I had been… cheating this whole time, that I probably wouldn’t have known what to do without that list. You’d change your mind?”

Eddie blinked at him, eyes wide. “You think I only fell in love with you because you somehow magically knew how to cheer me up?”

Buck stared back at him, and that little flame of hope, of trust, was there again in his heart. “Didn’t you?”

Eddie laughed. “Buck, I don’t even like _knock knock_ jokes. I love Christopher, and I love that cheeky smile on his face when he’s telling them. I mean, cleaning the pantry? Grocery shopping? None of that was remotely romantic _._ But it was… _good_ . It was _fun_ . Because you were there, Buck. I don’t love you because of the things you do, I love the things you’ve been doing because _you’re_ the one doing them.”

Buck had… never thought of it that way. Struck by Eddie’s words, he could only stare at Eddie, and Buck found nothing but sincerity shining behind Eddie’s soft brown eyes. It shouldn’t be a revelation, the possibility that Eddie loved Buck just for _Buck_ , and not for the things he did or didn’t do. Yet somehow ( _do you trust him?),_ it did.

“Buck, I’ve… been in love with you for _months,_ probably even for over a year. I don’t- I don’t know when it happened, actually. You’ve never needed a _list_ from Christopher to be incredible. You introduced me to _Carla_ when even I had no idea how overwhelmed I truly was, saw that I needed help before I even thought to ask for any. You saved Christopher from a _tsunami_ , you kept looking for him when anyone else would probably have stopped, even though you were hurt, on _blood thinners._ And… you put together a _Christmas party_ so everyone could spend the day with their families, ran around the firehouse with mistletoe and it was _killing_ me that you never came near me with it. Buck, you are... an _incredible, beautiful, amazing_ person. And it didn’t take you making me abuela’s _soup_ for me to fall for you.”

Buck had no words to describe the way he was feeling, a tangled mess of things even he didn’t know how to identify. Doubt, because he was only ever just trying to do the right thing, helping Eddie when he needed it didn’t make him somehow incredible and amazing, anyone else would have (should have?) done the same. Fear, because even now, even with Eddie’s confession still ringing in his ears, Buck was still terrified of screwing it all up somehow. Disbelief, because did Eddie really believe that? Had he really been thinking that, all along?

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Buck said.

Eddie closed his eyes, and laughed weakly. When he looked back at Buck, his eyes were soft, and clear, and for the first time, Buck thought he could see it, the love he had always mistook for kindness.

“Why didn’t you?” Eddie said.

And as strange as it was, it was only then, that Buck finally understood. He saw, in that moment, the same fears that had stood behind Eddie. Eddie had run away, then Shannon had run as well, and what was there to stop Buck from doing the same? Perhaps, some part of Eddie had been waiting for it, had thought he deserved it, just like Buck was waiting for Eddie to pull away from him like Maddie, Abby, Ali, all had. They had both been as terrified of each other as they loved each other. 

They were like two cracked mirrors, reflecting and amplifying each other’s worst fears with every moment of doubt and hesitation. 

But maybe, they could take all of those shards, and make something new, something whole again. Together.

Buck couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so excited, because there was a shining new possibility before him now, a life and a path he could not wait to walk down. Or, comforted, because he had never felt so _seen_ , had never thought Eddie would share and understand the same flaws and fears. And he was determined, determined this time to hold on, to let himself feel what he felt and trust in Eddie, and in the both of them together.

But most importantly, Buck was _happy_ , because Eddie loved him back. 

Eddie _loved him back_. 

When Buck didn’t respond, Eddie started to speak again. “So, do you think-” 

“I love you,” Buck said.

Eddie blinked.

“I just, I wanted to say it, without there being any kind of list, or, anything else to get in the way.” Buck explained. “I love you.”

A bright smile broke out across Eddie’s face as Buck repeated the words. 

Buck took a deep breath, and then, said it one more time for good measure. “I love you. I always have.” 

Eddie reached out and grabbed Buck’s hand. He gently tugged Buck closer, even as he also stepped forward. 

“Well, in the interest of fairness, you should also know this, Buck.” Eddie said. Then, he leaned into Buck’s ear, said those same words. Again, and again. Eddie loved Buck.

Eddie loved Buck.

He had always loved him.

First kisses, Buck found, were far too overrated. 

Their second kiss, Buck thought as Eddie leaned in, and their lips met, now that, that was perfect.

-

  
  


“I forgave you.”

A day later, Buck called Maddie to remind her of a very important omission in her earlier story.

“What?”

“For not taking me to the water park.” Buck explained.

“Well, yeah,” Maddie said after a moment’s pause, as she’d finally remembered what he was talking about, “after a lot of grovelling.”

“Christopher forgave me too.”

  
  


-

  
  


Buck was pouring leftovers into tupperware containers at his kitchen counter when Eddie stepped beside him and handed him a piece of paper. As Buck put down the bowl to read it, Eddie snaked his arms around Buck’s waist and nosed at Buck’s shoulder. 

It was a list, carefully spelled out in nine-year-old handwriting and with at least six different colors and some very impressive illustrations. Every item was clearly numbered from one to twenty, and at the top of the page the heading said:

**_how to cheer Buck up when he’s sad_ **

“No way,” Buck laughed. “He gave you this?”

“I thought I’d run it by you first before I get started,” Eddie said, lifting his eyebrows, “just to avoid any potential misunderstandings.”

Buck gently elbowed Eddie in the gut in a burst of indignation, and squinted as he read through the list.

“There are some pretty good ideas on there,” Buck said, leaning back against Eddie, whose body was a warm, solid weight behind his. Buck nodded as he read, impressed. “And it’s pretty accurate.”

“So you do get very excited when you win a stuffed toy in a carnival game?” Eddie’s voice was a low murmur in his ear, and his arms tightened around Buck. 

Buck grinned. “I suppose you’ll have to find out.”

“Noted,” Eddie said as he pressed a kiss against Buck’s neck. His breath was hot as it tickled the back of Buck’s neck, and Buck bit back a smirk and a shiver as his thoughts took a turn.

“My favorite is actually… number thirteen, just so you know. It’s actually also the one thing on Chris’ list that I never got around to doing.”

Eddie, who was carefully pressing a second kiss further down, looked at him curiously.

“Do you want to help me?” Buck turned around, and lifted the list between them so Eddie could read it.

Eddie pulled back, and took the list from Buck, a frown appearing on his face as his gaze moved down the piece of paper. “Adulty things?”

“Yep,” Buck said, staring at Eddie and waiting for it to click.

Eddie studied him suspiciously. “Wait, so the grocery shopping wasn’t-”

Buck shook his head.

Eddie nodded, putting the list down on the counter. And then, a look of realization crossed his face. “Adult things, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Eddie’s gaze was heavy when it settled again on Buck, and the intent Buck saw behind it made his mouth go dry. 

“I think I have a few ideas for what that can involve,” Eddie said.

“Do you?” Buck raised an eyebrow, he couldn’t seem to stop smiling.

“How about I show you?” Eddie pulled him in with a grin, and then, they kissed.

Saying yes to Christopher’s list was the best mistake Buck had ever made.

**Author's Note:**

> You made it! We made it! What did you think? Please don't hesitate to leave me a thought below! I am bad at replies but I treasure every comment I see.
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](https://https://ingu.tumblr.com/) where I continue to suffer in Buddie hell.


End file.
